


safe and sound

by onthighsbelongtotaemin



Category: SHINee
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Asexual Character, Bisexual Male Character, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Cigarettes, Cousin Incest, Cousins, Domestic, Domestic Violence, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, F/M, Forgiveness, Heterosexuality, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Male-Female Friendship, Marijuana, Mental Health Issues, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Character Death, Miscarriage, Multi, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Sexual Assault, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Polyfidelity, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Self-Discovery, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Assault, Tragic Romance, Underage Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-15 18:21:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9250001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onthighsbelongtotaemin/pseuds/onthighsbelongtotaemin
Summary: a childhood of sexual abuse leaves taemin unwilling to say no because yes brings safety.  a first love that ends bad finds him leaving in the night to a new city with a stranger & tattered hope.  in the first time of his life where no demands are made on his body, he learns about himself, his sexual identity, & decides that saying yes because he has no reason to say no is no longer satisfying.  old wounds begin to heal, especially when he meets a man that makes him want to say yes, & when his past shows up on his doorstep he's no longer afraid.





	1. un

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “un” - a prefix. meaning: not; contrary to; opposite of.

* * *

 

_eunsook swivels her hips slowly, languidly, looking at taemin with her chin on her shoulder. the smile on her lips is sly, familiar & his head rests on a pillow that is not quite soft enough as he watches her move, riding him at her own pace.  a single finger slips between her lips & scrapes against her teeth as she pulls it back out.  it’s warm & wet against his tongue when she presses it into his mouth & she moans as he nibbles on it gently, a little too hard, just enough to express himself.  one small palm is pressed to his sternum as the damp finger digs into the base of his skull, pulling him up for a kiss, her tongue moving in to where her finger had just rested. the room is hot & her skin virtually glows with exertion, her silky black hair hanging down to to the small of her back where taemin’s hand now rests as he sits up & begins sucking kisses across her chest.  tiny palms rest against his ears & blunt fingers move through his hair. _

_“on my back. fuck me on my back.”  her voice is a whisper & taemin swallows as he complies, rising up without disjoining, a hand at her waist & another on the mattress as he rolls them over, taking the uncomfortable position, the one he hates but that she loves & for which the rewards are great.  their arms are crossed, one over his shoulder & another over his hip, slipping down to his ass as his hips move hard & fast, aggressive, the way eunsook likes._

_little encouragements are whispered into his ear & weave into his mind & his body responds by stroking in even deeper.  fingernails scratch across his back & sting._

_when she comes it’s with a deep groan that reverberates against his chest & he comes inside her, her ankles held fast against his thighs.  the same finger from before brushes against his forehead, through the perspiration, & slips back in between her lips.  another sly smile._

_“so good baby boy, so good.”_

 

taemin wakes up hot in darkness, the room fragranced with the soft sting of marijuana & jongin’s gentle laughter.  a slurred request & he blinks, breathes a soft “yes” & rolls onto his side, taking jongin’s dick into his mouth.  another request & another affirmation & he lifts his hips as his flannel pants are ripped away: he’s still in his shirt when he moves to his knees.  cold fingers & liquid move inside him & then jongin’s pushing in before he can remind him to grab a condom.  he closes his eyes as his body moves.  

he’s on his back when jongin groans & pulls out, cumming across taemin’s stomach & slapping him on the ass before he begins to stumble towards the door.

“you’re dreaming about her again.  you should call her up.”  the words grow faint as he disappears around the corner & taemin listens to the door down the hall slam shut followed by the thud of jongin hitting his own mattress. the clock says that he has seventeen hours before he needs to go anywhere & his brain has betrayed him with an unwanted dream.  he’s sweaty & sticky & his room smells of sex.  the shirt he was wearing is tugged off & he uses it to wipe off his stomach & to catch the tension he never lets anyone else release, his own mess mixing with jongin’s.  the thought of a shower is too exhausting so he lays against the pillow, just as he had beneath eunsook, & stares at the ceiling.


	2. safe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “safe”. adjective. meaning: protected from or not exposed to danger or risk; not likely to be harmed or lost.

taemin comes out of the washroom rubbing his hands, the feel of cold water on his skin refreshing after the sticky mess he’d made with the book store cafe’s cinnamon roll.  he shoves them in his pockets & drops his head as he makes his way towards the exit.  he’s a paying customer but it still feels like they see what he is & he hasn’t yet come to terms with it.  halfway out, a man pops out of an aisle & nearly knocks him down.  they stand there, stunned, blinking at each other, & the other smiles in a way that is far too bright for a cloudy afternoon.

“hi!  do you happen to know where the manga are?  i got turned around & now i’m a little lost.”  very lost, taemin thinks, since they’re standing in the religious section.  he swallows at the thought & frowns because he’s clearly not a clerk & the other man is still smiling at him.  but he knows where they are & he knows what it’s like to be lost:  he has no reason to say no.

“over here.”  a tilt of his head to the left as he turns & heads down the aisle, avoiding the bibles that watch him passively from the shelves.  they reach the display & he gestures to the selection.

“awesome.  do you have any recommendations?”  taemin pauses, startled by the request. 

“uh, yeah.  this one’s pretty good.”  he pulls a familiar title off the shelf & hands it over to the stranger.  the other inspects it closely, flipping through a few pages, snapping it shut & looking up at taemin with that same smile, the one that’s a bit too bright.

“thanks, i think i’ll give it a try.  can i buy you a drink?”  it’s such an abrupt shift that taemin’s not sure he’s heard right.

“what?”

“a drink.”  he’s pointing to the cafe taemin was just in & still smiling.  taemin shrugs & says, “sure”.

the guy’s name is jonghyun & he’s a professor of music.  he’s engaging & nice & smiles quite a bit: it’s disarming.  when he asks taemin if he wants to go back to his place he says yes because he has no reason to say no & it’s often the safer answer.  it’s a small apartment with a big television & an even bigger stereo system.  a guitar sits in one corner & there are candles on either side of the sofa.  jonghyun lights them & has taemin sit down & they talk for a while about the type of things they like to read.  he’s not subtle, his gaze flickering down to taemin’s lips frequently.  taemin lets him kiss him because he asks & because he has no reason not to. 

there’s a certain timidity in everything jonghyun does, even when he’s fucking taemin in his bed, as though he can’t quite believe that he’s stayed, that this is all happening.  his confidence is a front & a protection, one that taemin is intimately familiar with & is a comforting tether to this stranger.

he leaves the room with the promise to return & there’s a look of disappointment on his face when he returns to find taemin half-dressed.

“are you leaving?”  it’s not a question he’s used to hearing, the reverse often implied or stated outright & he’s not certain if he’s being invited to stay. 

“oh, i...do you want me to stay?”

“if you want...”  taemin nods & smiles: has no reason to say no.  jonghyun’s fingers remove the clothes he’s just stepped into, his tongue warm in taemin’s mouth, & he’s naked again when he falls asleep, the unfamiliar arm holding him around the waist a neutral experience that has connotations he’s not ready to explore.

jonghyun makes him breakfast in the morning.

& dinner that night.

it’s an unofficial move from jongin’s to jonghyun’s.  it’s not as though he was ever an official member of the household; his stay there was always tangential, determined by jongin’s good will & taemin’s willingness to occasionally be fucked for the bed he slept in.  the parameters are the same with jonghyun except now it’s more than an arrangement, something closer to a relationship.  he waits for the shoe to drop, for the reality of the situation to reveal itself & it never does.  he is simply wanted & there are no extra rules he has to learn. 

jonghyun is never shy about expressing his interest taemin, telling him that he is beautiful even though he’s always sober, even when he isn’t asking for favors that require taemin to be on his knees; he just thinks taemin is beautiful & that taemin should know.  & clever, seeing something in taemin that he doesn’t see in himself, talking to him as though they were old friends & not the new strangers taemin knows them to be.  he answers jonghyun’s questions without details (taemin isn’t legal but his boss doesn’t know that & jonghyun doesn’t need to either), tries to keep up with the other’s thoughts, pretend he understands.  jonghyun is so gentle & kind & taemin would do anything to hold onto that even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it, knows it can’t last. 

yet it does.  even when jonghyun finds out, even when he learns how taemin has been keeping food on the table & a roof over his head he never wavers.  he still holds taemin through the night, still tells him that he is clever & beautiful, & still looks at him with such gentle affection that taemin feels weightless, as though the world were not actually the barren wasteland he’d so long known it to be.  he begins to believe it, to think that maybe this time is different, this time he might actually be loved & not lusted after.  and he is loved.  the things he had endured before, the ways in which his body & heart had been manipulated, stolen & abused, never happen with jonghyun.  nothing is forced on him, his opinion is always asked, consent is mandatory, everything begun with a question in his eyes & a murmured “does this feel good?”  and taemin has no reason to say no so he always says yes.  jonghyun doesn’t understand why his hands & mouth aren’t allowed below taemin’s hips when they face each other (& taemin never explains) but he respects the line & never crosses it, linking their fingers as he strokes in deep & slow.  jonghyun gives taemin hope and every time he is told “you’re so beautiful”, every time he hears “i love you”, every utterance of his name from jonghyun’s gentle lips makes him think that maybe, maybe he is finally safe. 

their first fight two months later shakes his faith briefly, convinced that jonghyun’s abrupt withdrawal of contact meant that the end had finally come.  especially when his first attempts at appeasing his first boyfriend were failures when what worked with eunsook only ended with a silent glare: it took a day & a half for jonghyun to start talking to him again.  jonghyun was a sulker who wanted solitude while he pouted his way out of a funk & it all seemed like a lot of work just to stay mad.  future fights between them didn’t happen often, just enough for taemin to learn that a day & a half was the standard wait for jonghyun to start talking to him again & that he’d accept shoulder hugs & kisses to his head in the meantime but nothing more. 

simple rules to follow. 

the make ups were always worth the wait.

~

six months later

taemin’s keys jingle loudly in the crisp winter air.  the thud of the deadbolt & the twist of the frozen doorknob with his bare hand gives way to the warmth of the darkened apartment.  the door is shut & locked & he’s taken two steps inside when there are suddenly hands around his waist & familiar lips against his mouth.  he hears a faint click & then the electric candles jonghyun keeps on a low bookshelf light up.  laughter slips through his lips when jonghyun points up & he sees that the entire living room has been decorated in mistletoe. 

his own cold sleeves wrap around jonghyun’s shoulders & he places his frozen fingers against the skin of his boyfriend’s neck causing him to yelp & move to pull away.  he pulls him closer & kisses him hard, slipping his fingers down jonghyun’s collar as he slips his tongue into his mouth. 

the morning finds them with little marks & bruises, scratches on jonghyun’s back & a splash of red near taemin’s shoulders.   a timid request for a christmas tree, a tradition that taemin had enjoyed as a child & held out hope of continuing as an adult, is granted & that saturday is spent finding a lot nearby & carrying the evergreen home.  it isn’t until they arrive that they realize that there were no decorations in the apartment so they make their own: popcorn on string & paper cranes with words of love & affection that grow increasingly absurd &, in jonghyun’s case, obscene.  taemin just laughs & kisses his boyfriend on the ear.

not having been raised in the tradition, jonghyun relies on taemin’s memories & the only other activity he is interested in is baking cookies.  another trip out into the winter wonderland, gloved hands stuffed in their pockets, & they purchase a roll of sugar cookie dough already shaped into little trees & a tube of icing because neither of them is particularly interested in investing too much time & effort into the project: cookies are cookies.  the scent of them baking fills the house as they change into flannel pants & t-shirts & boil a pot of water for cocoa.

their next christmas is a repetition of the first, a series of traditions they’ve made for themselves.  this year taemin decorates the apartment with mistletoe before jonghyun can get a chance though he notices that there are three he has no recollection of hanging.  the one he placed in the coat closet is his favorite.  a glass jar filled with their notes from last year sits on top of a bookcase waiting for the ones currently hung on the tree to be added to the collection.

they’re in their flannel pants & cookies are baked.  steaming mugs of cocoa sit beside the platter of green christmas tree cookies with orange frosting & they are each five cookies in & jonghyun is already complaining of a stomachache when his phone rings.  he glances at the id laughing with a crumb at the corner of his mouth.

“it’s mom,” he says, his eyes lighting up.  taemin nods & takes another bite as jonghyun answers the call.

“hi!”  the slow fall of jonghyun’s face from joy to confusion to fear makes taemin’s blood run cold & he drops his half-eaten cookie onto his plate.  “where?”  another pause & he rubs his wrist in worry at the tightness of his boyfriend’s voice.  “we’re on our way.”  the phone is tossed onto the table & jonghyun is halfway down the hall before taemin can even get out of his chair.

“what’s wrong?”, he calls as he moves quickly to follow.

“sodam’s in the hospital.  they’re not sure what’s wrong yet.  she fell down & couldn’t get back up, said her legs were numb.”  a pair of jeans are tugged over his hips & taemin moves swiftly to follow his lead, changing out of his flannel pants into his own pair of jeans.  they are bundled up again & this time in the car as jonghyun drives with white knuckles & a frown across town to the hospital.  taemin wants to say something but nothing comes to mind & “i’m sure she’s alright” isn’t anywhere near the truth: he is scared too.

they park on the blue level of the hospital parking garage & walk the three blocks to the er, jonghyun somehow moving faster than taemin leaving him struggling to keep up through the icy sidewalk.  no one they recognize is in the waiting room & a request to see his sister is delayed by twenty minutes while they wait for the nurse to find her & come back.  when he finally does jonghyun has been pacing silently for seventeen of those minutes & taemin’s wrist is sore from rubbing it with his fingers.

sodam is asleep & jonghyun’s mom is sitting beside her watching.  a decade seems to have passed since he had last seen her, worry aging her youthful face.

“mom.”  the smile on her lips is weak even as he bends down to hug her & taemin watches as she pats his elbow.

“hi, taemin.”  another weak smile & he returns one of his own as he replies, “hi mrs. kim.”

“what happened?”  taemin stands uncomfortably near the doorway watching mother & son & wondering himself.

“they still don’t know.  they didn’t give her anything, she was just tired.  last night was hard for her.  she had a migraine & no matter what she didn’t it wouldn’t go away.  then she fell down & couldn’t move her legs.  they’re going to run more tests soon, they said.”

sodam wakes up & her smile for jonghyun is brighter than that of their mom’s but it’s pretty clear to taemin that she’s doing her best not to worry her baby brother.  a few minutes later she’s wheeled away & hours pass before she returns. 

the good news, they’re told, is that they’ve found the cause.  the bad news, they’re told, is that they found it too late.  on an icy cold evening in mid-december, a week & three days before christmas, taemin listens as the man he loves is told that the sister who is loved more has less than a year to live.

~

“what do you want to do for new year’s?”  jonghyun shrugs & sips at his glass tumbler.  amber liquid splashes inside when it’s placed back on the counter.  the tree with the mementos & stale popcorn no longer sits in their living room & the mistletoe has disappeared as well.  in their place a bottle of hennessey has made an appearance in the cupboard with the pots & pans & glasses taemin doesn’t recognize are often added to the pile of dirty dishes each night.

the first plan had been to ring in the new year with sodam at their mother’s but she had insisted that they celebrate together out in the world.  “go, have fun & then tell me all about it.”  no one acknowledged that this might be the last new year’s celebration they would have a chance to spend together. 

“we could go downtown.  they have a carnival type thing there overnight.  fireworks & music.  it could be fun.” 

“i don’t really feel like leaving the house.”  jonghyun hadn’t gone anywhere but his mother’s house since his sister’s diagnosis.  school was out & he had no work to keep him busy.  taemin suspected he kept as clean as he did only for his sister’s sake.

“ok.  we could just stay in & watch the countdown on tv.”  another non-committal shrug & a sip of his drink.  jonghyun had been drinking a lot since that night in the hospital.  he wasn’t not always sober when they had sex, though never drunk: he’d only been drunk three times & the only consolation was that he had slept through the night each time.  tonight seems set to be the fourth as taemin watches his boyfriend pour another glass.  he’s not sure how many this is.  there’s a movie playing on the screen as the hours til the new year pass & a bowl of chips sits in his lap.

jonghyun is definitely drunk when he joins taemin on the couch to watch the ball drop in times square.  their midnight kiss is sloppy & tastes of whiskey.  the dishes from his snacks are in his hands & jonghyun’s on his phone texting his sister as the new year begins.

~

“fuck, i’m so sorry!”  jonghyun’s weaving a little as he leans down, eyes wide, hands eager to pull taemin back up from the ground where he sits, dazed.  his head hurts from where it hit the wall & he’s still in shock that it was jonghyun who caused the fall.  he takes the proffered hand & stands up again on its strength, smiling grimly as jonghyun’s glassy eyes dance all over him, nodding when he’s asked if he’d like an icepack.  he watches his boyfriend walk into the kitchen on unsteady feet, fumbling with the icepack as he wraps it into a towel & presses it gently against taemin’s scalp. 

he's not sure what just happened.  one moment he was putting the dishes away & the next he was on the floor & the only thing he knows is that it was jonghyun who put him there.  which is confusing because jonghyun’s never hit him before & he doesn’t know why he did now.  all he had said was to wish sodam a happy new year from him & then there was yelling & he was on the ground.  but now he’s standing & jonghyun’s eyes are wide & nervous & it all seems like a mistake.  maybe he was wrong.

“i didn’t mean to,” he says, watching taemin with sad eyes, “i’m so sorry.”  taemin believes him because it’s jonghyun & he’s never hit him before, barely raised his voice even.  it doesn’t make sense it could be any other way.  he dismisses it & murmurs “i know” as the throbbing in his head is mollified by the ice against his skull, smiling as he accepts the kiss of apology pressed to his cheek.

~

three weeks later & it’s the fourth time he’s been hit, this time it was angry fingers digging into his arm & shaking him so violently he thought his neck would snap before being shoved backward into the kitchen wall; the fourth time jonghyun’s said “i didn’t mean to.  i’m so sorry.”  taemin wants to believe him but now he has doubts.  because now his head aches from where it hit the wall & he tastes blood & his arms burn.  he’s dizzy as he waits on the floor while jonghyun brings him the same icepack from before & presses it gently again to his head.  he lets jonghyun hold him, his body stiff, & he sits still for the kiss pressed to his cheek.  later that night, jonghyun’s arm around his waist, he stares at the wall, feeling the bruises forming on his body & on his heart & he wonders why jonghyun keeps saying & doing things he doesn’t mean.

it's the alcohol, he knows that much, because he only gets mad when he gets drunk.  & he only gets drunk because sodam is sick.  taemin isn’t enough, could never be enough.  not when the true love of jonghyun’s life lays dying in a hospital bed & he can’t do anything to stop it.  & he doesn’t know how to comfort jonghyun.  even sex seems to be more of a distraction than a desire, something to make jonghyun forget for a moment that his world is dissolving & taemin’s beginning to notice that his body is in every way being used to absorb jonghyun’s rage & sorrow.  he wishes he could do more.

no matter what jonghyun does to him, taemin never cries.  tears haven’t fallen from his eyes in years.  when he was younger he cried, not often but enough: when he fell off his bike, when the play yard bully shoved him into the mud, when he lost the bracelet his grandmother gave him.  that was a long time ago.  he thinks maybe he stopped crying because it made eunsook soft.  he remembers her kissing him tenderly on his eyelashes & cooing at him as though he were a child.  which he was.  it was that extra affection, he thinks, that made the tears dry up.  it would have been easy to fall into her smile & stay there & pretend that they were in love.  he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

& then he’d found jonghyun.  or rather jonghyun had found him & this time it felt real.

even now, even as the truth of their relationship is distorted by slivers of rage & violence, even then it feels real.  the old jonghyun, the gentle one, never fades away.  he holds taemin through the night, tells him he’s clever & beautiful with his soft voice, stands on his top-toes to kiss him on the forehead, & fucks him gently with the lights on.  but his heartbreak is too much & he’s ceding control to the new jonghyun, the one who gathers up his sorrow & twists it into rage & gives it to taemin to carry; marks on his skin reminders.  taemin watches jonghyun pour himself another drink & thinks about how much pain he’s enduring that he feels compelled to numb it this way.

it’s the only way he can stay.

& he wants to stay.

he doesn’t want sodam to die & he never did but his reasons now are selfish.  months pass & so does what little of her life is left & her slow death is killing jonghyun as well.  taemin prays for sodam’s salvation because it is tied with his own, the cruelty of her fate having turned jonghyun cruel & if he can save her he can save himself & they will both be blessed.  he goes as far as to enter chapels & light candles when he knows there won’t be anyone there to ask too many questions.  he begs the holy mother to intervene because he’s not ready to ask god for a favor.  he dips his fingers into basins of holy water, baptizing himself in the spirit, & waits for a miracle with fading hope. 

~

“do you know where we are?”  taemin’s brow furrows & a little half-smile forms on his lips.

“the bookstore.”

“ok but which bookstore?”

“the one we went to last week & had to stand in line for three hours so you could get an autograph.  too bad you forgot your own name.”

“i got excited.”

“you’re lucky i was with you.”

“i’m always lucky that you’re with me.  now which bookstore are we in?”  taemin snorts.

“how long can i pretend i don’t know that this is the bookstore we met in before you pitch a fit & we get thrown out?”

“time’s up.”

“hmm.”  taemin laughs as jonghyun’s lips purse & he throws an arm around his shoulder & gives it a quick squeeze before letting go.  “happy anniversary.  this time i’ll buy you the drink.”

they laugh & talk as april showers make rivulets on the windows & distort their view of the world.  their feet meet beneath the table in little kicks & strokes & their stomachs are full of warm drink & sticky treats when they wander out of the quiet store where two years ago their fates had been tied.

~

the first of may.  may day.  mayday, mayday, mayday.  it’s too late.  for everything.

jonghyun is with his sister at her last breath & taemin is not: he’s asleep in the bed he shares with her brother when sodam kim dies.  morning greets him with splinters of sunlight that graze across his face until they hit his eyes & force him awake, an involuntary flinch as the bruise on his shoulder grazes the pillow.  the absence of another body beside him is no surprise & no thought is given to it until the absence of another body in the entire apartment & a missing car are noted.  there are no missed calls, no new texts, no indication of anything on the phone in his hand & he calls his boyfriend to see if he’s all right.  the line rings & rings & then it’s jonghyun’s soft voice telling him to leave a message followed by a shrill beep.  twice more & then he sends a text but no response ever comes. 

jonghyun comes home that night a different man than when taemin saw him last, no longer fractured but hollow.  he stands in the doorway & watches as a glass is filled with amber liquid, thrown back, & filled again.  the bruise on his shoulder itches at the sight.  a question should be posed but the danger is real yet to remain silent might be the greater sin.

his boyfriend’s at the table & he’s still on his feet so he moves towards him, reaching out & then pulling back, taking the seat beside the man who loves him.

“i’m going to mom’s tonight.  probably for the rest of the week.”  the glass is left on the table as jonghyun’s footsteps disappear down the hall & taemin listens to the sound of a bag being filled & the lack of invitation for him to come along. 

~

sodam dies on a tuesday & jonghyun comes home on saturday to drive taemin to the funeral.  the ride is silent though at the third red light he takes taemin’s hand & grips it tight beneath his fingers.  it’s a relief of sorts to be needed.  the house is vibrant with strangers & the soft crinkle of jonghyun’s mother’s eyes as she pulls him down into a hug that is warm & soft.  condolences are murmured into her ear & gratitude into his & he leaves as someone he doesn’t know takes his place in her arms.

the corner is quiet as he watches his boyfriend move through the room greeting those who have come to pay their respects, his sister’s friends & their relatives that taemin has never met.  a smile is on jonghyun’s lips that isn’t forced & taemin wishes now that he had more memories of sodam to share with him; maybe then he wouldn’t be so sad when they were alone.

a sigh slips from his lips & he looks down at his feet, starting when he’s met with a woman that had not stood before him just seconds earlier.

“i don’t think we’ve been introduced.  i’m gwiboon.”  no hand is offered between the two & he watches as her eyes appraise him, curious.  the same is done by himself, noting her sharp eyes & soft cheek bones, lips that look like a perfect bow.  the clothing she wears is loose & flowing & five earrings rest in her ears; two on one & three on the other.

“taemin.  i’m with jonghyun,” he replies.  a nod & a smile grows on the bow lips, one that grows as taemin is startled by the sudden weight of an arm around his shoulders.  a flinch & a grimace dance across his face that he hopes goes unnoticed as he smiles back.

“gwiboon.”

“hey jonghyun.”  there’s a tension & a familiarity that taemin doesn’t understand because their smiles seem genuine yet neither of them are moving.  “you look awful.”  taemin’s eyes widen at the remark & at the surprising sound of jonghyun laughing beside him bubbling up & he’s abandoned in favor of his boyfriend’s arms moving around the unfamiliar woman’s waist in a tight embrace.

~

“cousin, dad’s side,” gwiboon explains as she lights up a cigarette.  they’re on the back porch because she’d dragged him with her & he had no reason to say no.  taemin nods, remembering the one time he’d asked & how the light in jonghyun’s eyes shut down so quickly it actually ached to see it dim.

“we didn’t grow up together exactly but we went to the same schools.  sodam was just a few years older than me but we were never close, not like jonghyun & i.  she was cool though.”  a drag & a puff & a sigh.  “life is such fucking bull.  their bastard father gets to keep breathing while her ashes will sit on her mother’s mantel.  probably still drunk off his ass.”  there’s a burn to taemin’s ears & a cold flush in his chest.

“drunk?”  gwiboon looks at him then.  her eyes are confused, cautious.

“jonghyun never told you about his dad?”

“no, i never asked.  parents aren’t...his mom is great.”  gwiboon nods & smiles, the end of her cigarette burning orange.

“that she is.”  the last of her cigarette is tapped into a tin can she had grabbed on their way out the door & she stands, brushing her skirt with one hand.  “we should go back in.”

there’s another two weeks to her stay, an aunt on her mother’s side is expecting a visit while she’s in town & they make plans to have her over for dinner the following weekend.

~

the ride home is dizzying as taemin listens to jonghyun go on about how nice it was to see his sister’s friends, anecdotes of moments taemin missed while he was outside.  he’s excited about seeing gwiboon again & smiles at taemin as he talks about how nice it was of her to come.  he dodges taemin’s inquiry about how they’re related & instead tells a story about her that makes him laugh so hard the car jerks.  he’s with a stranger, a caricature of a man he thought he knew, another piece to a puzzle that makes less sense as time goes on.

especially as the smile that had blessed his face when they had been in a roomful of people slowly dissolves once they’re alone.  he leans against the wall & closes his eyes to the sound of clinking glass.  hope takes him towards where jonghyun stands & his hand hovers above the other’s shoulder, finally resting against his back, moving it around to warm the tense muscle.

“i’m sorry,” he says, though it’s not his fault.  it was never a secret that jonghyun loved her more than him, that her slow death had broken him in ways that taemin had never imagined a person could be & survive: six months to a year is such a short time to say good-bye.  & maybe he didn’t.  maybe that’s why he drank.  the jonghyun who was soft, who loved his sister, who loved taemin, slowly died as well & a new jonghyun, one who was in agony over his loss, was left in his place.  & for that he is sorry.

“you didn’t even cry.”  jonghyun’s hand still grips the glass.  it shakes a little as it rises to his lips. 

“that’s not fair.”   it’s a whispered mistake: he hasn’t cried in years & jonghyun knows that.  why is not relevant & he’s not about to explain now.  to his relief, jonghyun begins to cry.  he turns & buries his face in taemin’s chest & grips him tightly by the waist.  jonghyun crying in his arms is heart-breakingly familiar & taemin clings to him; this he knows, this he understands.  jonghyun being sad he can provide consolation for, jonghyun enraged he has no recourse against.     

the single glass poured sits half-full as he leads jonghyun down the hall to their room, to their bed.  both of jonghyun’s hands are held in his as he moves back against the headboard & pulls him down beside him & jonghyun rests his head in taemin’s lap.  tears dampen his leg as sobs wrack jonghyun’s body & he moves one palm up jonghyun’s arm to his shoulder, down to his elbow & up again while the other strokes his hair.  the position is uncomfortable but worth the discomfort when he feels jonghyun relax & his breaths even out.

three days pass before the bruise on taemin’s left side bears new witness to jonghyun’s sorrow.

gwiboon calls him up a day later & asks if he’d be willing to ride around with her because her gps is “crap & i can’t find anything when there’s a north 6th street, north 6th ave, & a 6th street.  who planned this town?!”  the sun is warm on his neck when she pulls up in a little gray car that smells of vanilla when he climbs in.  street names are virtually meaningless but he’s able to direct her to the restaurant listed in her phone & says yes when she asks if he’d like to join her for lunch.

“oh my god these fries are amazing.”  another string of cheese stretches from the white ceramic bowl filled with potato wedges, chili, & melted cheese to her mouth, eyes closing as she moans.  he smiles around his straw & tries to not to be too obvious in the way he shifts so that only his right side presses against the back of the booth.

“fank oo foh joning meh,” she says with a palm over her mouth, her eyes still closed.  they pop open & her smile is dazzling.  “i love their fries & i wanted to hang out with you again before we’re stuck with jonghyun.  figured why not do both?”  the slurp of her soda makes her giggle as she digs in for another bite.  “fo how ong ave oo bin wif joyun?”

“a little over two years,” he replies with a chuckle.

“how’d you meet?” 

“a bookstore.  helped him find a book.  he bought me dinner.”

“took you home?”  her eyebrows wiggle & a dimple appears in her cheek & he can’t help but laugh.

“yeah.  been together ever since.” 

“does your family like him?”  an innocent question that shouldn’t hurt.

“we’re not close.”  enough of an answer for her to nod & take another sip of her drink.  the bill is paid by her with a firm insistence.  dropping him at the sidewalk in front of his apartment, she thanks him for the company & he her for the meal & “see you saturday” is echoed from his lips as she gives a little wave & pulls away.

an angry jonghyun is who he is greeted with later that night.

gwiboon’s visit with them on saturday is a four-hour affair full of laughter & childhood memories & photographs taemin didn’t even know jonghyun had.  the evening ends with smiles & soft kisses & jonghyun leaning over taemin’s back & breathing “i love you” into his ear as he fucks him slow & right.  when he falls asleep taemin plays with the little tufts of hair that flit across jonghyun’s skull & wonders, not for the first time, what was the truth.  the cracks were becoming divides too great to cross, chasms that echoed with every beating & falsehood: apologies void of contrition. 

especially once gwiboon knew.

her unexpected return two days after she left their home for dinner means that taemin doesn’t have the time to hide the bruise blooming on his arm as he lets her inside.  it takes her a long time to cover the threshold & when she does it’s with fists at her side clenched so tightly the knuckles are white.  no questions are asked, her eyes fixed on the photographs of them that litter the refrigerator door.

“you need to leave him.”

“he loves me.”  it’s a reflex response, the thought in his head escaping through his lips.

“do you hit him?”  his eyebrows furrow in confusion as he glances at the pictures & back to her.

“of course not.”

“why?  don’t you love him?”  something in the air shifts & he can’t quite think.

“it’s only when he’s drunk.”

“then why is he ever sober?  which one is a choice?”

“sodam was dying...”

“sodam is dead, taemin.  jonghyun drinking didn’t save her.  jonghyun drinking might mean you’ll die too.”  taemin’s head shakes against the threat.  words are not enough to convince her but they’re all he has yet all he can say is “it’s not that bad.”

“yet.”  his phone is resting on the kitchen table & she picks it up, typing on the screen as he silently watches.

“i’m leaving on thursday & i would love to have you join me.  i live on the coast & there are plenty of jobs over there.  you can live with me & we can make our own chili cheese fries.”  the last sentence is meant to elicit a smile but even hers is weak.  “the choice is yours.  you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” 

he’s alone, a bruise on his arm & an alarm on his phone, one that tells him how much time he has left to make up his mind.   the kitchen is cold & silent, not even the hum of the refrigerator to fill the room.  fluorescent bulbs burn overhead as taemin brushes his fingers over the photographs stuck to the fridge with clear circular magnets.  a lifetime of images on display, a visual documentation of the growth & decline of their relationship.  he was so young when it first began, & uncertain.  his smiles are honest but they’re guarded because he was happy & he hadn’t been for a long time.  months pass & his smile grows & there they are at the beach, their arms around each other with smiles so bright they could light a room.  who took that picture, he wonders?  a stranger?  no, he realizes, it was jonghyun holding the camera above them.  there are three in the set & in the third he has his head on jonghyun’s shoulder & their hair blends because jonghyun’s head is resting on top of his. 

he blinks & bites his lips as his fingers travel down & the first hints of their present begin to show.  his smile is still true but now it’s guarded again; upturned lips but no teeth.  the most recent photograph, the one jonghyun took of them during a good day that had lasted a week found him with his lips pressed together in a grimace & his arms around his waist.

it wasn’t fair, he thought, life was destroying them both.  maybe he made it worse.  maybe he was what kept jonghyun from sinking completely beneath his grief.  maybe his presence was neutral & had no effect either way.

if only it were the same for himself.  then maybe he could stay.

~

a bottom lip is bitten beneath gleaming white teeth & jonghyun’s eyes are dark & hooded as he takes taemin’s hands.  a little swivel of his hips & a kiss to the crook of taemin’s neck & he can’t help but laugh at his boyfriend’s antics.

“jonghyun, no,” he giggles as fingertips dance up his side: the bruise on his arm is green around the edges now.  “i just took a shower & i’m so tired.”  jonghyun leans in & the smile on taemin’s mouth freezes as the scent of whiskey brushes against his nose.

“come on baby.”  jonghyun’s lips are at his throat & the towel at his waist begins to slip.  he grabs at it with one hand & presses the other to jonghyun’s chest, chuckling nervously.

“jonghyun, stop.”

“don’t worry, baby,” jonghyun replies, one hand fisting the towel & the other at taemin’s shoulder as his lips flutter over the exposed skin.  “i’ll make you feel so good.”  the battle is lost & now taemin stands naked. 

“no really,” he tries, growing desperate, “i just want to go to sleep.  in the morning.  i promise.”  it’s too late.  there are hands at his ass & they’re holding him in place, kneading the flesh as jonghyun grinds against his front.  

“i can make sure you sleep through the night.”  he kisses taemin’s neck.  “would you like that baby?  you want me to make sure you have good long dreams?”  he’s moving up taemin’s jaw & he’s watching him do it, kissing back when his lips are pressed.

“yeah,” he breathes, the last of his will drifting off with the dissipating steam, “that sounds nice”.  his mouth opens & he closes his eyes. 

he goes through the motions; nodding, smiling, saying “yes” when he should & focusing on the truth that everything is finite: nothing lasts forever.

~

his skin burns & he’s wet again while jonghyun’s sleeps quietly entangled in the sheets.  numb now, he doesn’t feel anything: no hope, no love, no fear, no trust, no anger.  nothing.

the phone he’d left on the kitchen table warms beneath his palm as he presses her number & waits to hear her voice.

“taemin?”

“can i still join you?”  there’s a pause & the screech of tires.

“yes.  where do you want me to pick you up?”

“at the park down the road.  it’s across the street from the welcome sign as you head into town.”

“i’ll be there in thirty.”

“i won’t have a phone.”  there’s another pause.

“ok.”  he hangs up & deletes his call record, picks up his wallet & counts out the cash inside, stuffing it into his jeans pocket.  it’s the only thing he takes as he leaves his home.

the headlights of a car pulling into the parking lot changes nothing.  it’s gwiboon, he knows, but he doesn’t particularly care, even as he begins walking to her.  he’s rescuing himself in part because it will make her happy he knows, & in part because he has no reason not to.  & that is enough to move his feet across the grass & over the pavement.

gwiboon is silent as she drives them through the moonlit night, the radio turned low to let taemin’s thoughts progress unhindered.  he stares out at the passing scenery, leaning against the frame of the open window with bare feet propped up on the dash.  the evening air is cool on his face & the moon that follows them is so bright it seems false, unnatural.  it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. 

every passing city is lit with hope, every blackened field a promise. 

he’s in-between lives & too numb to care.  his last memory is a betrayal & the stranger beside him is a faith he no longer has: she may turn out to be just as cruel as the others.  he has nothing left to lose: he takes the chance.  the repayment has already been decided. 

he wakes with a start, the touch of an unfamiliar hand pressing against the bruise on his arm causing him to jerk away.

“sorry, sorry.  usually i ask but you were asleep.  fuck, that sounds awful.  we’re here.”  her smile is grim as she steps out of the car & he’s surprised by how much cooler the evening is when his feet hit the pavement.  it’s a narrow street filled with small houses on either side & the noise of a busy thoroughfare can be heard from two blocks down.  three concrete steps lead them up to a screen door that gwiboon leans on as she unlocks the deadbolt & taemin follows her in with her two suitcases in his hands.

the house is tiny with a sliding glass door behind a square dining table just in front of him, a love seat & a papasan chair to his left, a small kitchen separated from the dining table by a bar with three stools, & a hallway that disappears just beyond the refrigerator.  stained amulets hang in front of the windows & framed mirrors of various shapes, sizes, & colors are attached to every wall.  the luggage is left just inside the door & he locks it at her instruction before following her further inside.  the layout of the kitchen is explained with simple things like the hiding places of plates, cups, & flatware revealed.  a thin closet directly across from a bathroom holds a selection of towels & a fresh toothbrush & bar of soap are pulled out for him from the top shelf.  the final room is a bedroom that is nearly filled with an enormous bed, two tall dressers, & heavy curtains that hang to the floor.

“if you’re comfortable, this is where we’ll sleep tonight.  we can pile pillows between us if you want.  the other bedroom...well it’s sort of my closet.  we can get that moved around & get you a bed in there over the weekend.” 

“no rush,” is murmured from his lips as he moves forward & slips his hands over her hips, his gaze flicking down to her mouth & back up to her eyes.  “i want to thank you.   what would you like me to do?”  no one has ever housed him before without taking him into their bed & he doesn’t know gwiboon well enough to assume that she would be any different: he says yes before the question is even asked.

the look in her eyes is wholly unfamiliar before it softens into something he recognizes as sadness blended with amusement, a gentle smile on her lips & her hands gliding over his to move them away from body.

“i’m famished.  would you like a sandwich?  i have some turkey in the fridge.”  he blinks as she begins walking down the hallway & disappears into the kitchen they had been in just minutes before.  the sound of the refrigerator opening & the squeal of a cupboard door jar him out of his confused daze & he follows her down the hall & takes a seat on one of the stools pressed against the counter.

she talks to him while she makes their snack, about where they should go tomorrow & the things they’ll need to shop for.  pen & paper are placed before him & he writes down everything she lists off, answering questions posed to him & otherwise keeping silent.  a plate is slipped in front of him & she asks if he wants anything to drink but he declines.  she eats her sandwich in the kitchen leaning up against the counter next to the stove.  he glances at her frequently through his lashes, muffling any words he might think to say with oversized bites.  the thought crosses his mind that she may have just wanted something to eat before she took him up on his offer.  or she might be angry with him & is giving him a last meal before sending him out the door.  he’s not sure. 

his empty plate is taken with a smile & washed by her hands at the sink, dried off, & placed back in its cupboard.  the door shuts & her back is to him & there’s no reason for her to continue standing there but she is & taemin feels his stomach drop.  when she finally turns around it’s with that smile, the amused one, & there’s a spark of hope he refuses to grasp in case it burns him.

“i’m not good at subtlety, taemin.”  her fingers grip the edge of the counter behind her as she leans against it.  “i’m not great about being gentle with my words.  i’m blunt.  so let me be blunt now.  if you want to show me gratitude you can wash dishes or clean the bathroom or do the laundry.  never think you have to have sex with me to have my friendship, to stay here.  that is not something i will ever want from you.  ever.  you’re safe here.  maybe you can’t trust that yet.  hopefully one day you will.  don’t worry, there’s no rush. 

“now.  i’m going to go get changed because i’m exhausted.  i have a pair of jinki’s sweat pants & a couple of his t-shirts if you want to change out of those clothes before you go to sleep tonight.”  his forehead crinkles in confusion at the name he’s never heard & he wants to ask who that is but he doesn’t: he’s exhausted too.  instead he nods & says that would be nice, watching as she pushes away from the counter & her footsteps grow faint down the hall.  the sweatpants are soft & dark gray with white stripes around one thigh & a size too big: the t-shirt the same.  he’s engulfed in fabric & it’s nice, like being in stretchy armor.

the bedroom door opens & he waits until she smiles & pulls it open all the way before he enters the room, chest warming when he sees that she has already built a wall between them: an army of purple, red, & gold decorative pillows stand guard from the headboard to the end of the mattress, the most beautiful fortress he’s ever seen.  he audibly sighs as he slips under the sheets, the softest material to ever touch his skin, the bruise on his arm draped beneath.  an extra pillow is handed to him without a word & he hugs it to his chest for balance.  the lights above fade out & a single lamp burns at the other side of the bed.

“good night, taemin,” gwiboon whispers as she lies down on the other side of the buttress of pillows.

“good night, gwiboon,” he replies, waiting until the room falls into darkness before closing his eyes.


	3. and

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "and". conjunction. meaning: comparing two identical comparatives; to emphasize a progressive change.

when taemin wakes up friday it’s to the smell of coffee & the nagging feeling that he’s forgotten something.  he hisses as he shifts just wrong & the bruise on his arm is caught beneath his rib.  the shock of pain has him sitting up & his fingers are brushing over the tender skin as he looks around the room.  the curtains are so heavy no sunshine breaks through their weight but a sliver of light lays at the bottom of the door.  fingers absently scratch at his chest & run through his hair as he stands up & moves to open it.  in the hallway he pauses because he thinks he maybe should say hi to gwiboon first but he really has to pee so he opts to use the bathroom before he greets his host.  a quick scrubbing of his teeth with the brush she pulled down for him last night, clear yellow plastic, & he steps back out & heads down the hall.

“hey,” she says, her eyes fixed on what looks to be an omelet sizzling in a pan.  whatever it is smells delicious & his stomach twinges with hunger.  a smile is on her lips when she brings him a fork & a plate with an omelet smothered in cheese (“i assumed”, she says with a gentle smirk).  the first bite is amazing & the second equally so & he drinks the cup of coffee she brings him as though it were the water of life itself.

he tries not to think about where he was twelve hours ago & how different his life had become in just one day.  the dishes are washed to the best of his ability & they spend the rest of the morning & well into the afternoon shifting gwiboon’s clothes from the tiny guest room to her own.  it has a twin bed that had been serving as a dysfunctional dresser & shoe display & takes nearly an hour of work to completely unearth it.

“some of this will have to stay in here, in the closet.”  her hands are on her hips & she sighs, blowing at her bangs. 

“it’s fine.  it’s not like i have anything.”  he chuckles but she frowns.

“we’ll have to fix that."

the majority of the clothes are packed in tight on thin hangers in the tiny closet & the carpet vacuumed before they climb into gwiboon’s car, taemin back in the clothes he had worn on the drive last night, & head to the store to pick up the items on their list.

~

when they pull into the drive back at her house he has new sheets, six sets of clothes, & a few toiletries.  they’re both hungry & taemin offers to fix them lunch while gwiboon throws everything they’ve bought into the wash.  or the reverse.  or he could do both.  he smiles nervously & rubs his wrist.  gwiboon laughs & lets him try his hand at sandwiches, smiling when he hands hers over sliced up into squares.  companionable silence fills the spaces between their munching & taemin washes their dishes when they’re done.

gwiboon’s in the back rotating the laundry while taemin stands at the bar & with a glass of water when two men stumble through the doorway, one nearly falling over with a smile that’s too happy & a laugh that’s too loud.  he has his arm tossed behind the back of the other man & his waist is grasped in the other’s arms.  they’re both wearing sunglasses & the second one, the one not smiling, pushes his up over his head where they sit soberly atop a raven head of hair. 

taemin takes a step back, surprised because the stranger with the smile & the laughter looks sort of like jongin when he’s high though it’s clear they’re a little drunk.  they don’t smell heavily of alcohol but it’s not a subtle fragrance either & he’s gripping the back of the barstool as he watches raven hair call for gwiboon.

she pads out in the hallway & then sighs in exasperation as “smiles” calls out “gwiboon!” & reaches both hands out toward her.  she’s nearly toppled over by his weight but catches her balance, wrapping her arms around the small of his back & whispering something that makes him smile turn impish.  they disappear down the hallway & now he’s alone with a stranger & the dissipating smell of what he’s just fled.

raven turns to him then & smiles, a disarmingly gentle smile & stretches out his hand saying, “hey, you must be taemin.  i’m minho.”  he smiles & pulls out a bag, little bits of green visible through the sheer plastic.  “wanna join me?” 

“does gwiboon know you have that?”

“as long as we’re not in her house she doesn’t mind.”

taemin nods & follows without volition because minho’s childish grin & soft eyes make him complacent in a way that is familiar & warm.  they push through the sliding glass door & pull it shut a bit too hard behind them.  minho takes the chair in the center of the deck & taemin takes the one beside him, the one just three steps from the doorway.

the glass pipe he begins filling is a surprisingly pale pink (“a gift from gwiboon”, he says when he catches taemin staring) & the lighter he puts on the table beside it is dotted black & white: it takes taemin a moment to recognize the pattern of soccer balls.  there’s a small blaze & then minho is inhaling deeply, blowing out the smoke with practiced ease.  he hands the pipe to taemin who does the same, following the familiar ritual.  he had gotten high with jongin from time to time but he hadn’t smoked since he met jonghyun two years ago.  it’s bittersweet to be having the smoke fill his lungs again.

they don’t really talk about much, minho doing most of the talking on his own.  a few questions are asked about taemin’s past & present but enough dodging has minho doing more to introduce himself than to learn about the man beside him.

a broken ankle a few years back is what got minho to start smoking, he says as he blows out another pale gray puff.  he’s a physical education instructor at a junior high who spends ten full minutes talking about a game whose rules & movements taemin wouldn’t have been able to follow if he were sober.  he just nods a lot & thinks about how warm minho’s voice is & how hot the metal chair is against his bare arms & thighs.  maybe he’s being electrocuted.  either way, it feels nice.

~

“minho & i are like friends with benefits but the benefits are different.  no sex, just lots of cuddling & the occasional kissing.  minho thought he was straight for the longest time because of that.  we met freshman year in the cafeteria.  we were both on work crew & he was bossing everyone around.  they had to pull me back because he wouldn’t hit a girl but i wasn’t about to let my uterus keep me from taking him down.”

gwiboon is standing at the stove with her back to taemin as the makings of dinner slowly begin to take form on the stove.  it has been two hours since the two men had burst into the house.  jinki is asleep in the bedroom & minho left to grab a few last minute ingredients for their supper from the little market on the corner.  apologies had been made as soon as they were alone for not letting him know that they might be stopping by & for not explaining who they were beforehand.

“we met jinki at university our sophomore year.  he was a senior & by chance we discovered that we were both dating him.  it was never a secret that monogamy isn’t for him & that he was more attracted to people than to gender.  so it wasn’t a surprise that he was dating someone else, it was a surprise that he was dating minho.  what were the odds?” 

a pile of plates & cutlery is pulled out of their respective cupboard & drawer & handed to him.  he moves silently around the table setting places for these new strangers to eat.

“so you’ve been together awhile?”

“four years.”

“but you don’t live together.”

“no.  we-”  the sound of the bedroom door opening is followed by the sound of the bathroom door shutting.  taemin sits back down at the bar stool & looks at gwiboon who rolls her eyes & smiles.

“he’ll be fine now.  a little tipsy, probably.”  a smiling jinki with fluffed hair steps into the kitchen & kisses gwiboon on the cheek before resting his hands on her hips & his head on her shoulder.

“sorry.”

“you should be ashamed.”

“that too.”

“you startled taemin.”  soft brown eyes that crinkle harmlessly turn to him & he cringes a little at how gentle the man seems.

“sorry.”  no explanations, no excuses.  he turns back to gwiboon & whispers something in her ear that makes her slap his hand & giggle.  the door opens then & minho walks in.  it’s the four of them now & taemin sits at a table with strangers watching them laugh & smile.  another two hours pass before the men leave again, kisses placed on gwiboon’s lips & a “good to meet you” sent taemin’s way.  it’s dark outside & cool as the lights from the pickup truck minho drives fade away.   

~

a week passes & taemin’s hands shake as he lights up the pipe minho left behind.  half a dozen interviews have gone nowhere & his palms still burn from the rough brick they gripped last night.  the old habit of a “yes” for safety had him in the shadows of a fluorescent light with a stranger & the warm summer air.

~

“so how old are you?”  instead of answering directly he pulls out his wallet. 

“here.”  the i.d. he’s been using for the last four years is a bit faded but he hasn’t aged much since the picture was taken. he hands it to her & hopes there are no follow up questions because the truth is the only payment he can give her for taking him in.  the look on her face is inscrutable & she sighs as she hands it back to him.

“well we’re going to have to get you a real i.d. before we do anything else.  so.  how old are you?  really?”  no one else knows: not jongin, not jonghyun.  only eunsook.

“i’ll be twenty in july.”  the widening of her eyes is not subtle & he knows what she’s thinking.  “jonghyun thought i was twenty-one when we met.”  the card with his picture on it fits back into its worn slot as he shrugs.  a faint smile passes across his lips.  “i’ve been using this since i was sixteen & no one’s ever noticed or cared.”

“well.  i do.  you need to get a real one.”

when the birth certificate she orders for him on-line shows up a week later it’s jarring to see his parents’ names printed on the blue patterned paper in stark black ink.  they were such a distant memory now, sharp yet unimportant & it’s almost as though it’s the names of strangers being designated as the man & woman who created him.  he wears a black shirt to the dmv & doesn’t smile & keeps a running tally of how much all of this is costing her so that when he has the cash he can pay her back.  when she asks if he has a diploma he shakes his head.  the cost to order a copy of his g.e.d. is added to the list.

~

taemin stands in the humid air, his hands fisted into his pockets & his hair slowly growing damp.  the rain is warm, an odd change from the icy droplets he’s used to, & they fill the air more than splatter to the ground: it’s like walking through the steam of a shower.  the light over the crosswalk is taking its time changing color & he’s not brave enough to cross four lanes of traffic against it, instead subtly bouncing back & forth from foot to foot as he waits.

the walk from where the bus dropped him off to the office he’s heading to is longer than he’d like in the dampness, he’s sure to look a mess when he arrives, but it was the only way he could get there on his own.  so he settles for a quick ruffling of his hair in a passing window & hopes that their familiarity with the local weather will forgive his mussed appearance.

the manager is a friend of jinki’s & he had grimaced at the connection.  he still doesn’t know how he feels about gwiboon’s other boyfriend & he doesn’t like being indebted to another drunk.  that’s not fair to either of them, he knows, but everything is still too raw to be rational.

the door has a bell that jingles & a pretty secretary who smiles brightly.  the interview goes as well as he expects & he’s not surprised when he doesn’t hear from them by the weekend. 

he’s shocked when they offer him a job on monday.

his hours are daylight now & his income is about half: no tips.  he’s left to himself quite a bit, only about six other workers on his shift & he’s content to let them talk about sports while he goes about his work.  it’s still physical & it feels good to ache from labor.

~

the july sun burns on taemin’s neck as he unlocks the front door & steps inside.  the house is dark & quiet when he slips out of his shoes & he moves toward the kitchen to make himself a snack.  as he passes from the living room to the kitchen he hears the soft murmurs of voices he recognizes as jinki & gwiboon.  the door to the bedroom is shut, muffling the sound.  he reaches up to pull a glass down from the cupboard & his arm freezes in the air when he hears a sound, distinctly sexual, & the sudden moaning of jinki’s name in gwiboon’s voice.  he panics, standing in the kitchen a moment too long, now painfully aware of what’s happening mere feet away, & he quickly turns around, closing the door as softly behind him as he can.

he’s at a loss now because he’s hungry but there’s no way he can fix himself something to eat while his friend is fucking her boyfriend down the hall.  there’s not much money in his wallet but he uses it to buy the cheapest food he can find at the market down the block & eats it as he slowly makes his way back. 

it’s been fifteen minutes & he’s sure they must be done by now but a quick poke of his head in the house makes it clear that they’re not so he sighs & resigns himself to a time-out on the uncovered porch, the summer sunshine raining down on his unguarded form.

it’s not too bad.  there’s a breeze & it’s surprisingly cool.  he pulls his new phone out of his pocket, the one he’s paying gwiboon back for whether she likes it or not, & begins playing a game, checking the clock intermittently & waiting for someone to open the door because he’s not going back inside until he’s sure it’s safe.

73 minutes later he hears voices behind him & he stands & turns as first the main door & then screen door are opened behind him.

“hey, taemin.”  jinki looks surprised to see him & taemin bites back his annoyance at how happy he looks.

“hey, jinki.”  they nod at each other as taemin steps inside, shutting the main door as jinki heads down the walkway to the sidewalk.  that’s when he notices minho’s truck parked down the block & he kicks himself mentally for not seeing it earlier.

gwiboon is in one of her silk robes bustling around the kitchen when he sits down at the bar & she grins at him when she notices his presence.

“hey!”

“hey.”

“i was just making some dinner.  stir-fry sound good?”

“uh, sure.  yeah.” 

“how was your day?”  her back is to him & there’s a knife in her hand slicing up a green pepper.

“pretty good.  the job ended early which kind of sucked.  especially since it meant i just spent the last hour on the front porch.”  gwiboon snorts as she begins searching for a bowl, glancing over at taemin’s frown & bursting into laughter.

“sorry.  jinki’s...pretty thorough.”  her eyebrows wiggle as she grins.

“so...you like it?”  the question comes out unbidden & he’s not sure where it comes from.

“yeah.”  they’re studying each other, both a little confused.

“you must love him a lot.”  there’s a soft smile that barely covers the salt in his tone & she’s beginning to look at him differently.

“i do.”

“he didn’t even stay.”   her eyes soften & her back turns to him as the preparations for dinner continue at her hand.

“he had to pick up minho.”

“oh.”  taemin still doesn’t understand their relationship, even after living with gwiboon for nearly two months.  what he knows is that gwiboon & minho are very snuggly together & that she likes to hug his arm & rest her head on his shoulder when they stand around to talk outside.  he knows that jinki likes to hug her from behind & kiss her neck & that their fingers often lace at her waist.  he knows that jinki lives with minho & that they are not “just roommates” & he knows that they are all in love because it’s written in gwiboon’s shy smile, in minho’s tender gaze, & jinki’s hands at the small of their backs.  what he doesn’t know is why minho & gwiboon are with jinki.

~

taemin stands at his door listening to gwiboon & jinki’s voices in the kitchen.  the doorknob still resting in his hand, his eye peering through the crack in the doorway.  jinki leans up against the bar & gwiboon stands beside him.

“you’re not his mom.”

“aren’t i though?”  gwiboon blows the smoke out of the side of her mouth, chuckling at the look on jinki’s face.  “well, older sister at least.”  she kisses the corner of his lip & takes another drag.

“hey.”  he rubs her shoulders then props his head over her right side, kissing her neck.  “there’s still time.  just because it happened doesn’t mean it always will.”  she stiffens & takes another drag, blowing the smoke to her left.

“not today.”  silence sits around them as he nods & kisses her neck again. 

“ok.  what do you need?”

“tell me something light.”

“minho fell out of bed today.”  she snorts out a puff of smoke, coughing.

“that must have been quite a sight.”

“his feet were up in the air & when i looked down he was just staring at the ceiling as though he’d somehow been betrayed by gravity.”

he closes the door & sits down on the bed, rolling onto his back & staring at the ceiling.

~

three days pass & he doesn’t see her at any point but he doesn’t think much of it because he’s been so busy himself.  things are going well at work & he’s made a friend & it’s nice to have someone to talk to while he carries heavy sacks of soil.  it’s tiring in a good way but he’s young so it isn’t wearing.  there’s more work in the summer & he takes it because it means more money to pay gwiboon back with & more distraction from thinking too hard about why he owes her in the first place.

moonkyu reminds him of jongin in good ways & he passively misses his old friend.  jongin was the reason the time between eunsook kicking him out & the first time he was fucked for pay lasted only a week.  & it was jongin who fucked him so it was a fair exchange; safer than on the streets.  he thinks moonkyu wouldn’t ask for the same rate though he’s not sure he’d take him in to begin with. 

on the fourth day the air is thick with smoke when he steps across the threshold & he coughs twice before he’s even shut the door.  every curtain is drawn & the windows are all closed.  a tiny box fan sits on the bar behind her & does about as well to move the air around as a child successfully blowing out the candles on their birthday cake. 

an ashtray is filled to the brim & little bits of ash scatter beneath her fingers as she takes another drag: the orange burn of the end of her cigarette is bright in the dark apartment.  the lack of greeting or even basic acknowledgment, never even turning her head, has him dropping his bag cautiously & keeping his eyes on her as he removes his shoes.  she’s staring at the wall & it’s an eerily familiar sight, the cigarette in her hand reminiscent of the glass in jonghyun’s & there’s no certainty that the outcome won’t be the same.

“hey.”  a soft attempt at grabbing her attention is met with a look of surprise & a faint smile.  the back of her hand dabs at her eyes & he’s confused to find she is crying.

“hey.  didn’t hear you come in.  how was your day?”

“it was good.  are you ok?”  even as she nods more tears fall & it is a shaky hand that brings the cigarette to her mouth.  the chair is solid beneath him as he drops down & rests a hand on her forearm that is subtly withdrawn.  he lets it fall to the table.  there isn’t anything he can do if she isn’t going to tell him & he has learned enough to know not to push a person who is grieving.  instead he offers to make dinner which makes her laugh a little with the protest that he keep it simple & not “do anything that might bring around anyone in uniform”.  he scoffs, offended.

“how about pizza then?”  nodding absently, her face turns back to the wall & the pale gray cigarette in her hand is stubbed out only to be replaced seconds later with a pristine white one that burns fresh.  a sigh is stifled as he rises to pull out his phone.

~

“you should stop smoking.”

“so should you.”

“cannabis doesn’t cause cancer.”

“that should be a slogan,” gwiboon says as she takes a long drag.  taemin watches her before turning back to the sky.  august means that two months have passed since they started living together & two weeks since he’d come home to find her sitting in the dark.  jinki & minho have stopped by every day since & tonight they had left less than thirty minutes ago; jinki spent the entirety of the visit with gwiboon at the table while minho & taemin smoked outside.

“you only smoke when you’re sad.”  the quiet is broken by a pair of dogs that begin barking down the road, a conversation that drags on & then abruptly quits.

“but i don’t always smoke when i’m sad.  i wouldn’t be able to afford it.”

they were dancing around it again.  dancing around taemin finding gwiboon in tears at the kitchen table; on the three days she never left her bedroom; of the way he had caught her staring at a kitchen knife before hurriedly shoving it back into the wooden block.

he doesn’t have a response so he takes her hand & fiddles with her fingers watching the shimmer of her nails as they moved.

“this is a nice color.”  a lame turn of conversation but silence was dangerous.

“junghee chose it.”

“how is she?”

“good.  she & minjung are thinking of buying a house.”

“hmm.”  their conversation stilts & bursts through another hour before the chill of the night compels them back inside.  he manages to get her to talk another hour before they finally go to bed.

~

“why did you try to fuck me?”

the room whites out for a sharp second as the dry bite of oatmeal in his mouth gets caught in his throat.  a harsh cough & a quick swig of cold milk followed by a few deep breaths has his vision clearing.

“what?”  her back is against the counter directly across from him & her arms are crossed at her waist.  it’s not an angry look exactly: curiosity with something else not yet clear.

“when we got here you tried to fuck me.  or offered to.  or offered to let me fuck you.  not quite sure which.  it was odd at the time since you’d never made a move on me before & it was obviously not because you found me hot.  so what was it?”

there were few things in life taemin was certain of, very few that he believed in now.  life had been a series of gray skies streaked intermittently with sunlight that burst through the haze against all odds; memories built with jonghyun amongst the brightest.  the last had been black but a balance was struck & more gratitude than grief was felt when the memories surfaced.  gwiboon shimmered as well in the slowly dissipating dark & the urge to always be truthful with her compelled him to answer honestly.

“wanted to thank you for helping me.”

“by fucking me?”  his shoulders shrugged & his gaze dropped to the spoon hovering over the cooling cereal in the bowl, the spoon still held in his fingers.

“usually works.”   

“do you like sex, taemin?”  the spoon warms as his fingers grow tight & he shrugs again as he looks back up.

“i’m good at it.”

“ok.  but do you enjoy it?”  he shrugs again & begins to stir the oatmeal.  it’ll grow cold & solid: his appetite has vanished.

“why are you asking?”

“you asked me.”

“i asked you what?”

“if i liked sex.  it made me curious.”

“when did i-” ah.  the afternoon spent on the front porch.

“it’s ok if you don’t.  not everyone does.”  not a consolation he had realized he needed.  nor one he believes.

“but i...”  fuck.  his fucking dad’s voice in his head had the spoon clattering to the counter & his fingers pressing to his temples, eyes squeezed shut.  “i get...you know.”  a hand waves in the air in a silent “please don’t make me say it out loud” plea.

“erections?  orgasms?”

“yeah.”

“so?”

“so doesn’t that...doesn’t that mean i like it?  i mean...why else...?”

“people laugh when they get tickled, doesn’t mean they like it.  sometimes it’s just our bodies responding to stimulus.  like right now.  think about minho.”  his cheeks burn.

“what about minho?”

“i see the way you look at him.  you should ask him out.”  taemin scoffs. 

“he’s dating you guys.” 

“yeah, so?  you could be good together.”

“it would be so awkward if he says no.” 

“just ask him & he’ll decide.  besides, do you really think minho’ll let anything get awkward?”  he shrugs because he doesn’t think he will but he doesn’t know he won’t.  “now,” she continues, “think about minho naked & damp & warm from the shower.  what do you want to do to him?  what do you want him to do to you?”  a small snort escapes as he smiles.

“why are you asking that?!”

“just answer the question.”

“maybe smack him with a towel?”

“is that it?”

“i don’t know.  take a nap?  warm snuggles sound pretty great.”

“nothing about having him bend you over the table & fuck you until you can’t remember your name?”  the smile falls & that clench in his gut returns.  consent out of desire & consent out of ease, the former significantly more often than the latter, were distinctions he had not ever considered existing: what he wanted didn’t matter.  not until jonghyun, not until minho.  the truth was that if he were never asked he would never have said yes & he only said yes because he was asked: he would never have asked himself.

“no.”  darkness still since he hasn’t opened his eyes & he’s reluctant to open them now though he does anyway.  no longer curiosity but hesitancy is the look he’s met with.  another question.

“did jonghyun know?”  it’s not her right to ask, of that he is certain.  there are connotations within that question, implications against jonghyun’s character that deserve defense & a flush of protectiveness for jonghyun’s sake burns in his chest.

“no, he didn’t.  don’t make him into a monster, gwi.”  her eyes narrow & he knows she’s holding back.  “it wasn’t like that with him.  that was always good.” 

the oatmeal is scraped into the garbage disposal & the assault on his ears from the machine & water is a welcome reprieve from the dizzying rush of emotions their conversation has brought up.  they’re close enough to touch but gwiboon remains still against the counter as taemin washes his bowl & spoon & puts them in the rack.  an impulse has him kissing her cheek in a silent act of forgiveness before he heads down the hallway & prepares for work. 

~

avoiding jinki was tricky because so often he came when minho stopped by.  it was fair, they were boyfriends, but often enough it felt spiteful, a reminder that taemin was the outsider.  he’d nod & grimace & hope that he & minho would be allowed time alone on the back deck.  often enough it worked out that way with gwiboon & jinki’s murmured voices growing louder & softer as they moved around the kitchen making dinner.  minho & he wouldn’t smoke much before they ate, just enough to take the edge off from minho’s day at work.  there was no pattern to gwiboon though taemin tried to piece one together to prevent the evenings where a cigarette joined them as they sat down to eat.  it was never mentioned but he could see that he wasn’t the only one who knew & those were the only nights that jinki’s fingers didn’t find hers atop or below the table.

for a time, blame fell to jinki in taemin’s eyes.  if he would just pick one of them then gwiboon would be happy.  if he would just stay with her she would be happy.  if he wouldn’t keep coming & going she would be happy.  he didn’t love her enough.  he didn’t deserve her.  it would have been so much simpler for her to be healed if the wound were a cut from a single blade.  it was clear that more than just one man played a role in the days of darkness & smoke but he clung to the blame as long as he could rationalize it because it was an uncomplicated conclusion.  it also wasn’t the truth but lies are often ever more comforting.

tonight is a blend of fingertips & smoke; a bad day turning into a good night.  he’s watching their hands a little too intently to hear his name & it takes fingertips tapping the back of his hand to draw his attention.  it’s minho tilting his head towards jinki who’s smiling at him with gwiboon’s hand resting on his palm.

“gwiboon & minho want to go to the fair on sunday.  want to come?  my treat.”  he could, he has the day off.  not much money, though, & he wonders what’s included when jinki says “my treat”.  he nods & hopes for cotton candy as he says “yes” because he has no reason to say “no”.

the day is warm & the air soft with the hint of a breeze when they arrive.  he keeps his hands in his pockets self-consciously as he watches jinki pull away from gwiboon just long enough to buy their tickets.  fingertips scratch at the bright orange paper band now attached to his wrist as they move across the grass towards the rides.  gwiboon & jinki are holding hands & occasionally they stop at a booth along the way so that one or the other can point & gwiboon can rest her head on jinki’s shoulder.  he glances at minho out of the corner of his eye but usually finds him engrossed in what the others are looking at.  it’s weird wanting to hold his friend’s boyfriend’s hand even though she’s told him he should just ask.  he just hasn’t worked up the courage to do so yet & now doesn’t seem like the right time.

the tumultuous thoughts running through his head are broken apart by the sudden increase in the volume of the others’ conversation & he hears gwiboon cry “no!  don’t tease me!  you’re horrible!  i hate you!  you’re awful!” as she punches jinki on the shoulder & goes to cling to minho’s arm, the two men laughing & gwiboon’s hand patted beneath minho’s palm.

“don’t worry boonie.  i won’t let the mean old man take you up on the big scary roller coaster.”  jinki moves his hands up, curling his fingers, & takes a step towards the pair as he lets out a soft roar.  she reaches out & punches him again, this time on the chest, & then buries her face against minho who kisses her hair.  taemin’s still a little confused & isn’t quite sure what’s making everyone laugh but he trusts minho’s smile & gwiboon’s indignation.

“you should take taemin.”  it’s gwiboon’s suggestion & minho voices his agreement.  jinki hesitates.  taemin licks his lips & tentatively asks, “where?”

“roller coaster”, minho replies.  “gwiboon hates them & jinki loves them.  i’m neutral on the topic.”

“oh.  sure, i’ll go.”  in truth he’d wanted to try the one whose passengers he’d heard scream while they were still in the parking lot.  now that the offer was made he wanted to take it.  even if it meant he’d be alone with jinki.  & if the slight falter in jinki’s smile & forced “great” is any indication he’s not the only one agreeing just because there’s no one else to enjoy the ride with. 

their conversation while in line is stilted & driven mostly by taemin’s desire to not appear ungrateful to the man who paid for him to be able to climb aboard the roller coaster they’re now buckling into.  a clichéd “ready?” from jinki is followed by a nod & a half-hearted smile as they grip the metal bar in front of them & the ride begins.

~

taemin’s slightly dizzy & his throat burns & nearly all the tension between him & jinki has been scattered across the field as they climb aboard ride after ride & scream far into the afternoon.  three hours, gwiboon will curtly tell them later, is the amount of time that passes between them leaving the other two to them being found laughing with bright eyes & animated hands as they make their way back to the first one for their fifth ride on it.

minho drives them to the house & gwiboon rides with jinki in the back with her feet in his lap as he massages her ankles & tells her about the rides he & taemin had been on.  taemin glances back at them & sees a soft smile on her face while jinki’s attentions are directed solely on her legs.  he turns back & watches the streets until they pull into the drive.

everyone moves in different directions: the bedroom, the bathroom, the patio.  minho’s blazing up & gwiboon’s coming back out in slippers followed by jinki who’s rubbing his hands.  between the rides & the ride home he’d forgotten that they were grilling burgers tonight, a last hoo-rah before the chill of autumn made such an act unpleasant at best.  the potato salad is ready but the beans need to be warmed & the grill heated up & he sits down at the bar to watch which task is going to be taken by whom.  gwiboon presses a kiss to jinki’s temple & a hand to his waist as she whispers something in his ear.  the plate of patties is pulled from the fridge & she rubs taemin’s shoulder absently as she passes on her way to the door.  he watches as she steps outside with the platter: it’s her fingers that turn the knobs & begin cooking their meal.

he turns back to find jinki fiddling in a drawer with a frown.  he swallows & takes a breath.

“thanks, by the way.  i had a great time today.”

“yeah, me too.”  the response is murmured & distracted, jinki’s fingers still shifting noisily through the drawer.

“also, thanks for getting me the job.  i never really thanked you for that.”

“i got you an interview.  you got yourself the job.”

“well you did put yourself out there even though you didn’t know me.  so thanks.”

“gwiboon said you were worth the risk.”  taemin’s breath catches in his throat & he shakes his head.  “besides,” jinki continued, “even if i got you the job you’re the one who’s kept it for the last two months.  don’t diminish that.  that’s your hard work.”  the drawer slammed shut as he muttered, “where is the damn can opener?”

“gwiboon put it up in the cupboard with the wooden spoons.”

“why?”  taemin just shrugs.  they both knew why: gwiboon organizes when she’s sad.  jinki’s eyes soften & he bites his lip as he moves to the cupboard with the wooden spoons & pulls out the missing can opener.  the hinges squeak as he began to close it, & again as he pulls it back open & grabs a spoon.

“can i help?”  it seems the thing to ask.

“no, i got it.  it’s just beans.”  he laughs & glances over at taemin with a smile before reaching up to pull down a pot.  he watches as jinki begins opening the giant cans, filling up the pot with the beans & little chunks of bacon, placing it on a burner then turning a knob so that the little red light on the stove glows. 

“kinda like to apologize too.”  jinki turns on the tap just as he speak & he turns it down quickly, rinsing out the cans as he glances over.

“what?”

“i wanted to say i’m sorry.”

“for what?” 

“for being a jerk.” 

“when?”

“since we met.”  jinki just snorts & turns off the water, wiping his hands on the pale blue towel hanging over the oven door.

“yeah, you’ve made it pretty clear you don’t like me.  & it’s ok taemin.  we don’t have to be friends.”  he turns back to the stove & stirs the beans.

“could we be, though?  i haven’t fucked it up that bad have i?”  jinki chuckles & turns back with a confused smile as he continues to stir the pot.

“no you haven’t fucked it up that bad.  but there’s clearly something about me that you don’t like & i don’t think our shared enthusiasm for roller coasters is going to change that.”  taemin sighs & runs his fingers through his hair. 

“look.  my last boyfriend started drinking & it got really bad & that’s how i ended up here.  then the first few times we met you were pretty wasted & it just”, he waved his hand in the air, “built from there.” 

 “oh.”  the kitchen’s quiet enough to hear the hum of the refrigerator & the soft gurgle of the beans cooking.  it’s not uncomfortable because he knows jinki well enough now to know that he’s thinking & not angry, despite his face & the arms he’s now crossing.  “so that’s it?”

“yeah.”

“oh.  well, ok.  i mean...not to sound insensitive, but how do you want this to work?”

“what do you mean?”

“do you expect me to stop drinking?”

“no, that’s...that’s my thing.  it was just...everything was so fresh & raw.  thinking about it, you were kind of a scapegoat.  i had to get mad at something & you were kind of it.”  his fingers are scratching at his scalp & his chest burns.  “fuck, i’ve been an ass.”  jinki’s just watching him when he looks back up.  “sorry.”

jinki shrugs with pursed lips, his hands slipping easily into pockets.

“hey, no.  i get it.  to be fair it’s not like i made a huge effort either.  are you ok now?”

“getting better.”

“good.”  he’s nodding & taemin reflexively nods too.  that’s all he wanted to say & now that he has he finds that he wants to say more.  so he asks a few leading questions & laughs at the jokes that jinki makes: jinki really is funny, no matter what gwiboon says. 

the beans finish & are poured into a bowl taemin points the location out to for jinki.  the stove is turned off, & jinki pulls three glass bottles out of the fridge, hands them to taemin before grabbing the steaming bowl.

“let’s go.  they’re waiting for us outside.”    


	4. sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “sound”. adjective. meaning: in good condition; not damaged, injured, or diseased.

taemin tosses his bag to the floor as he steps in, his shoes soon to follow.

“minho’s out back.”  he pauses, looking at gwiboon at the kitchen table.  she was smoking again: a bad day.  he opens his mouth to ask but she beats him to the question.  “it’s just him.”  he nods & walks across the room to the back door, pushing the screen aside with ease.  it is chilly & the yard is damp but the chairs are dry.  he sits in an empty one next to minho who hands him the bowl.  the burn when he inhales is familiar, almost calming, & he relaxes as he breathes out the smoke.

jinki arrives an hour later.  taemin asks him to join him on the back deck while minho & gwiboon talk inside.   jinki hesitates, glancing between minho & gwiboon & back at taemin before saying “sure, let me just grab a drink”, turning to lean into the refrigerator & pull a glass bottle from its depths.  the back door glides open with ease & the chairs are cool as they sit together & jinki begins to drink.

“gwiboon always asks me if i’m happy but never answers when i ask her if she is.”  the drink jinki takes is much longer than necessary, drawn out by hesitation as the bottle reaches his lips.

“it’s complicated.”  glancing over, almost as an afterthought he adds, “it has nothing to with you.” 

“oh.  good.”  it hadn’t actually occurred to him to think it might.

“you being here has actually helped, I think.”

“really?”  another long drink & jinki’s staring out at the yard.

“yeah.”  there’s more, there’s so much more taemin’s supposed to be told but jinki isn’t telling him.  the memory of loving & being loved by someone as much as jinki loves gwiboon tugs at his heart & he’s distracted enough by the thought to forget the things he shouldn’t say.     

“you remind me of jonghyun.”  jinki immediately bristles & his narrowed eyes are not kind. 

“your ex-boyfriend?”

“yeah.”

“he got drunk & he hit you.”  taemin nods & turns away, staring out at the yard & the unsettlingly white fence that divides gwiboon’s grass from the neighbors’.    

“sometimes, yeah.  not always.  it was good before it was bad & sometimes it was good while it was bad.  you remind me of the good things.  & i want to remember the good things, i need to remember the good things.  if i don’t i build up hate & i’m not strong enough to carry that burden.  & i shouldn’t have to.”  he catches jinki nodding & hears him take a sip.  he turns then because he needs to see jinki’s face.  gwiboon wouldn’t forgive this confession but jinki might.  “i loved him.  i still do.  is that weird?”  jinki leans back in his chair & stares at the bottle in his hand.

“no,” he says with a careless shrug, “i still love mine.”  he squints & rubs his face, glancing at taemin before turning back towards the yard.  “my mom.  every day: get drunk, beat me, pass out.  rinse & repeat.”  the bottle touches his lips & then falls back to his lap.  “our minds aren’t meant to bear that much pain & it finds ways to convince us that it isn’t real, that they actually love us.  & maybe they do.  but they love something else more.  it’s always something else; alcohol, gambling, sex, themselves, money, sorrow.  it’s always something.  they’re broken in their own way & they don’t know how not to break everyone else around them as well.  it’s cyclical if it’s not caught.  we’re lucky, you & i.  we’re inoculated now.  it’s like chicken pox.”  a little snort & then the bob of his adam’s apple as another sip is poured down his throat.  taemin watches silently & wonders why jinki drinks when his mother did but decides it’s no different than gwiboon smoking or the pipe in minho’s bag. 

“you should ask minho out.”  he chokes on air & glances at jinki who’s still staring out at the yard.

“did gwiboon tell you?”  the smile jinki flashes him is brilliant & followed by the warmth of his laughter.

“you’re hardly subtle.”

“sorry.”

“why?”

“he’s your boyfriend.”

“he’s _our_ boyfriend, mine _&_ gwiboon’s.  besides, finding a person attractive isn’t something you should apologize for.”

“feels weird.”

“ok.”

“...do you think he’d say yes?”  he chuckles himself as jinki bursts into laughter.

~

taemin runs next to minho as they sprint through the park.  he has never been here before & keeping his eyes on a path he is unfamiliar with is nearly as distracting as the shirt that grows tighter on minho’s body the sweatier he gets.  it was strange how now that he had a name for the way he felt about men how aware he was of every instance of attraction.  minho’s body was beautiful; so strong & toned & his golden skin glowed.  even now, his cheeks were flush with exertion & little curls formed around his ears as the hair was infused with sweat.  his limbs were absurdly long & almost spindly & just now when he flashed a grin at taemin his little teeth gave him a childish look.

he was attractive.  & taemin was attracted to him.  he wanted to hold him, to be held by him, to kiss him, & maybe do a little more.  but he didn’t want to have sex with him.  whatever happened, him “saying yes because he had no reason to say no” was never going to be an aspect of their relationship.  even now with the running: he had a million reasons to say no to minho asking if he’d like to join him for a run.  but he had one very important reason to say yes.

he moves up onto the grass near the fountain & stretches his legs while they each catch their breath. 

“how are you doing?”

“good.”

“ready for more?”

“ready.”  minho winks & takes off, taemin trotting quickly behind.

when they finish their run, taemin leans into a stretch while minho drinks from his bottle & he watches the double-adam’s apple bob with every gulp.

“would you like to go on a date sometime?  with me?”  minho smiles with puffed cheeks & he laughs when he swallows.

“this doesn’t count?”

“oh.  uh...”  a burst of laughter & a nod & minho’s saying “yes, i’d like to go on a date with you.”

taemin is broke but minho is not so they compromise & their first date is spent in the apartment minho lives in with jinki playing video games & eating ordered pizza.  a shared competitive streak keeps their eyes off each other longer than anticipated but it’s still not been an hour before taemin’s in minho’s lap, their tongues mingling, fingers brushing through hair & up & down sides, stroking muscled backs.  taemin didn’t realize how much he had been missing until this moment when he knew that every touch would not come with a price, that he would be safe & that this would be all he would be asked to do.  & how much he had missed being kissed & caressed.

they spend the night in a bundle of blankets on the ground, minho’s head against the armrest of the sofa & taemin’s head in his lap with video controllers still clutched in their hands as they sleep.

~

the first time taemin sees a christmas tree he flinches.  it’s a beautiful evergreen sitting in a store window decorated in white & ivory spheres, glittering lights, & silver tinsel.  the beauty of it is breath-taking but the holiday it represents casts a shadow.  his eyes fall to the ground & he kicks at the snow a little before looking back up.  the pockets of his coat are full of his fists when he finally walks away.

“do you have any traditions?”  gwiboon looks up from her book.  the papasan engulfs her & she looks tiny against its frame; feet tucked up beneath her & both hands clutching the top of her hardback.

“like what?”

“dinner?  gifts?  church?  tree?  stuff like that.”

“sort of.  we usually go to the chinese place down the road & the guys come to service with me that morning.  well, minho comes.  jinki sits in the foyer with his phone.”  a little half-smile & a shrug & then a look of confusion.

“why?”

“i sort of...we...i have some things i like to do at christmas.  & i just...”  the book closes & rests in her lap as she leans forward.

“tell me.”

the cookies are made from scratch as is the cocoa because minho & gwiboon actually do care about the quality of their snacks.  there’s no room for a real tree so instead thin rope is hung with snaps to hold all the little notes they want to write to each other.  gwiboon insists that everyone write a note to everyone so that there is no imbalance when advent ends.  the men nod as she speaks & then turn to each other once she leaves & they all agree to write her two notes for every one they write each other: she laughs when she sees that her jar is twice the size of their three.

when it’s time to go to service taemin hesitates & almost backs out.  years have passed but a religious upbringing is hard to shake & he still thinks of himself as a sinner though it was he who was sinned against.  ten minutes in & he’s back out in the foyer with jinki staring at the wall while jinki taps on his phone.  at least he tried.  the sweet & sour chicken at lunch takes off the edge & when they get home that night the experience is all but forgotten.

~

it’s not their first kiss but it is their first new year’s kiss & if he’s lucky this is the same man he’ll ring in the new year with next time the ball drops in times square.  it’s a messy giggly affair with gwiboon kissing jinki & minho kissing taemin followed by minho kissing jinki & gwiboon kissing taemin’s cheek; jinki & taemin shake hands while minho & gwiboon have the final kiss.  jinki stays in gwiboon’s room & minho falls asleep in taemin’s bed: it’s too cold & too dark to drive.  he looks at his jar of notes in the morning when the truck pulls away & smiles.

~

taemin lays on the bed & watches minho’s forehead crinkle in concentration as he twists his tablet to the left & then to the right, his lips tight & wonders what kind of man he is.  he has ideas but he wonders if there are secrets that minho keeps.  maybe even ones he keeps from himself.  taemin’s learned so much about himself in such a brief period that he wonders if everyone isn’t walking around with secrets they don’t realize they’re carrying. 

it's just them in the apartment; jinki took gwiboon out of town for valentine’s day & it’s still two days before they’re expected back.  taemin was indignant at first at minho’s lack of invitation but his boyfriend had just ruffled his hair & laughed & explained that “valentine’s isn’t for people like us.  it’s for saps like those two.” & pointed at jinki & gwiboon who just rolled their eyes & snuggled in closer.

“i want to do something.”  the game has been dropped on a side table & minho’s laugh warms taemin’s ears as he brings their faces together & kisses taemin’s lips.

“i want to...”  he tilts his head down & looks at taemin through his lashes, whispering his request almost too softly for taemin to hear.  he swallows because he doesn’t like that, didn’t even let jonghyun do it to him when things were still beautiful between them, the reason his lips & fingers weren’t allowed below his hips.  eunsook did that.  it’s interwoven with fear & anger & he doesn’t like the way it makes him feel.  or rather he does & that makes it worse.  perhaps it’s written on his face because minho’s eyebrows are furrowing & he’s murmuring something to taemin that the blood pounding in his ears is making it impossible to hear.

“what?”

“we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.  sorry if i made you uncomfortable.”  he leans in & kisses taemin’s cheek & lays back down on the bed, smiling up at him.  taemin stays upright for a moment, just looking at his boyfriend before lying down beside him, watching him in wonder.  kindness in sex is no longer an unfamiliar concept, & even his input being received so calmly isn’t wholly new.  but it still confuses him & he’s enamored with the action.  his fingers reach out & play with minho’s, looking at their fingertips touch before glancing back up.

“maybe.  i just...”  he stops & watches minho’s face.  he wants to tell him, but he’s never told anyone, not even jonghyun, not even jongin.  jongin never knew he & eunsook were cousins, always assumed that they were a couple & in a sense they were.  the power dynamic between them, however, was never built on love, trust, or respect.  it was built on dominance & fear, a submission born of youth & a loss of hope; saying “yes” because it was safer than saying “no”.

“i was surprised.”  he leans forward & kisses minho on the nose, watches him for a moment, & then kisses him on the mouth.  there’s something about this man that makes him willing to take risks he’s navigated away from for years.  he does want to try.  & not for minho but for himself.  memories of the past are interfering with the formation of ones in the present & he’s tired of them having so much control: he wants to be able to make choices without the fingerprints of abuse holding him back.

“are you sure?”

“yes.”

he swallows as minho moves down & licks his lips as minho begins unbuttoning his jeans.  the sound the zipper makes is violently loud in his ears & he does his best to focus on the way he feels about minho & not what that sound makes him think of.  minho takes his time, goes slow, strokes taemin gently, & it’s obvious that he delights in what he’s doing, watching taemin with a mischievous smile: he’s making taemin feel good.  he absorbs the touches & adds it to the emotions tied with his boyfriend & makes every effort to enjoy what is happening below his hips.  nerves grow tight when minho licks his dick & his breath becomes erratic when minho takes him in his mouth.  lips are licked & eyes closed but minho’s only moved his head three times before taemin can’t take it anymore.  he pushes minho’s head away a little too hard as he moves up the bed, his knees pulled painfully to his chest as he shakes.  minho’s soft voice filters in through the ringing in his ears murmuring that it’s ok. 

“it’s not ok!  i don’t...”  it’s too late.  to the surprise of them both, taemin begins to cry.  years have passed since he last wept & he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do now that there are tears on his face.  minho has moved up the bed beside him & isn’t touching him & he knows it’s to keep him safe but he just wants to be held.  he wants to be held so bad so he pulls minho in tight, wraps his arms around the other’s waist & sobs brokenly into his chest.  there are so many tears & he thinks he’ll never breathe again without them.  minho is warm & his arms are strong & right now he’s kissing taemin’s hair & remaining silent.  taemin’s hiccupping now, mucus mixed with tears & the humid air of his staggered breaths muffled by minho’s shirt.  it finally, finally ends & he doesn’t let go because minho in his arms is the only thing keeping him grounded in this moment; if he were to let go he’s not sure what would happen.  he hasn’t been this scared in a while.

“my cousin.”  that’s as far as he can get before he’s sobbing again, his chest aching & his head beginning to throb as he pulls minho even tighter.  enough time passes that the warm streaks of light that played against their feet have now moved to the wall. 

“she said it was a game.  she said that it was our secret & that i would be happy if we played.  i was eleven & she was fifteen.  she would kiss me & make me touch her.  she would rub me through my pants & laugh when it made a mess.  i was fourteen when she started fucking me.  i’ve always been small.  & she was so much bigger than me then.  she said it was our special game & then laughed every time i got a boner saying it was obvious i liked it.”

“that doesn’t mean that you liked it,” minho says, fingers dancing through taemin’s hair.  “people laugh when they’re tickled & no one likes being tickled.  it’s just the way our body responds to things.”  the repetition of gwiboon’s words from months back is a startling comfort & he pulls minho in tighter.

“my dad kicked me out because of it.  he walked in on her on top of me at the worst moment.  i’d been sick for days, on so many meds.  i woke up to her fucking me.  it had been a long time & i thought it was over & i was pushing her away when he walked in: all he saw was my hands on her hips.  my cousin is older but she’s smart.  an all-star, literally.  she volunteers in soup kitchens, tutors, helps little kids learn to read, full academic scholarship.  there was no way it was her fault; it was obviously me.  he couldn’t believe his niece would do such a thing.  besides, girls can’t rape.”

“girls can rape.”  it’s simple, strong, & so certain.

“no they can’t.”  his father said so.

“did you say yes?”

“i moved in with her.”

“the first time.  did you say yes?”

“no.”  minho kisses his hair & brushes his fingers over taemin’s shoulder.

“it wasn’t your fault.”

“i stayed with her for a year until she kicked me out.  a year after that i met jonghyun.  & then i met you.”  he leans up & kisses minho’s jaw.  “i’m glad i met you.”

“i’m glad i met you too.” 

“i’ve never told anyone.  no one else knows.”

“i won’t tell.”

“i know.”  he leans up to kiss minho’s jaw once more & then his head is again against his boyfriend’s chest.  he falls asleep in minho’s arms & asks him if they can try again in the morning.  a few missteps in between notwithstanding, taemin cums in minho’s mouth as jinki & gwiboon pull up outside. 

~

three weeks after their trip together, jinki & gwiboon are all smiles & gentle laughter.  one evening three weeks & one day later taemin comes home to find gwiboon on the kitchen floor staring at the tile, her chin resting on her knees & her fingers locked at her shins.  kicking off his shoes he makes his way to where she sits, kneeling down beside her & placing a hand on her knee before withdrawing it & moving to her side.  her head falls to his shoulder.

“what happened?”

“miscarriage.”  he looks down at her hair in surprise.

“what?”

“miscarriage.”  the dullness of her voice frightens him & he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say.

“oh.”

“three.”

“what?”

“three miscarriages.”

“i’m-”

“don’t.”  he nods.  “what if it never happens?  what if i can’t have kids?”

“i don’t know.”

“do you think jinki will stay?”

“what?  of course he will.”  taemin has no doubt & no idea why gwiboon does.

“why?”

“he loves you.”

“maybe he just loves the idea of me.  we talked about having kids early on, you know.  we agreed that we’d wait at least a year until i finished college to try.  i didn’t want to wait but i knew he was right.  i knew we’d be happier if we did.  but then year after year, miscarriage after miscarriage.  what if...what if he gets tired of waiting & decides i’m not worth it anymore?”

“gwi...”

“i’m temperamental, i get so sad that i stop functioning, i...”, she tears up.  “why would he stay?”

“you should be talking to him about this.”

“i’m asking you.”

“he would stay because he loves you.  because he likes being with you.  because you challenge him & make him a better person.  he’s not with you just for the little pieces & he won’t leave because of them either.  he’s with you for the whole messy mosaic.”

“maybe.”

“you should see the way he looks at you when you’re not looking.  the way he smiles when he talks about you.  maybe this part of your plan won’t work out but maybe it will.  you should stop hiding in all that cigarette smoke & go ask someone who might know.”

“a doctor?”

“maybe.”  on impulse he slips an arm over her shoulder & the other across her chest, gathering her into his arms.  it’s not a natural act for him but with her everything changes.  he’s a different, better person when he’s with her & it just seems right.  an act of gratitude for the life he now leads because of her.

“what do you want?”  a natural question, one he wonders if she’s asked herself.

“what do you mean?” 

“i mean...do you want to get married?  do you want to live with jinki?  if you have kids would you?  or would you stay here by yourself?”  gwiboon is quiet for a while.

“no, i don’t want to get married.  but i think i would like to live with jinki.  i didn’t.  i really wanted my own space.  my grandmother left me this house so i got lucky there; no rent, no mortgage.  now i think maybe i do want to live with him.  but he & minho seem really happy & i don’t know if he’d want to give that up.  i don’t know that i’d want him to.”

“you really need to get better at communicating with your boyfriends.”

“yeah.  especially minho.”

“you two don’t make sense.”

“i know.”  she looked at him with a smile.  “you two do, though.”  he grinned.

“you think so?”

“of course.  you could move in with him.  then everyone could be happy.  maybe.”

“maybe.”

“would you like that?”  the thought is tempting but he only shrugs in response.

~

the waves are icy against taemin’s ankles & he can already feel his toes growing numb.  it’s spring & the beach is abandoned, it’s just the two of them on a cloudy afternoon.  the sand is soft & rough beneath the soles of his feet & he squishes his numbing toes deep in the near-black grains.  a laugh was the only warning before a sloppy clump hits him on his neck, knocking him back & nearly tumbling him into the water.  cold sand clings to his shirt & slips beneath his collar attaching itself to his chest & he shakes the material violently as minho’s bellowing laughter floats toward him, muffled by the ocean’s roar.

glancing over he catches the other bent in half & pointing at him, a hand pressed to his waist as he laughs.  taemin just frowns & continues shaking his shirt & wondering if it wouldn’t just be easier to take it off. 

“here.”  a towel is held in front of him & he reaches out to take it.  “may i?”  minho’s eyes are bright & a little shy, a little hopeful.  or maybe taemin is just hoping they are.  he nods & lets his hands drop.  minho’s fingers are surprisingly warm as he lifts taemin’s shirt & scrubs at the sand with the towel & taemin doesn’t bother to hide his stare as the other’s eyes are on his chest & away from his own.  such soft lips, he thinks, such kind eyes.  safe.  soft.  he leans forward & brushes a kiss across the other’s cheek, almost missing & hitting his eye, not smiling but not frowning as his heart thuds & his cheeks warm.  a smile & a chuckle are his reward & an order to take off his shirt as the other leans back & pulls the heather blue hoodie over his head.  the black t-shirt beneath fits a little too well & the impulse to rub his frozen fingers beneath is held back only by the faintest thread & the desperate need to not be cold.  the hoodie is warm & a size too large & he bundles in tightly with the hood drawn snug against his cheeks & his hands fisted around the ends of the sleeves. 

minho laughs again & pulls him close, cradling his covered head with one hand & the other resting against the small of his back.

“i’m sorry.  that was a cheap shot.”  taemin nods silently, the sleeves slipping over his knuckles as he reciprocates the hug.  a kiss is absorbed by the material covering his head & they rock a little with the noise of rushing water serenading them from just yards away.

“we should head back.  do something sappy like blankets & cocoa.”  a small snort & a nod before they separate & taemin’s frozen fingers are warmed by minho’s palm.  the ride back consists of the heat on high & taemin’s thoughts on the potential for a hot shower.  perhaps one shared. 

~

taemin opens the door without checking, still laughing at gwiboon’s remark about the posters hanging in the doctor’s office with his phone in one hand as he twists the knob with the other.  looking up he finds jonghyun standing on the other side of the screen door & they both freeze when their eyes meet.  he slams the door & licks his lips as his heartbeat quickens.

“what the fuck?”

“taemin?”  the faint sound of gwiboon’s voice from the phone gripped in his hands startles him & he whips it back up to his ear.

“jonghyun’s here.”

“what?”  her confusion matches his own & does not help his unease.

“on the porch.”

“why?”

“i don’t know.”

“what’s he doing?”

“i don’t know.  i just slammed the door.”

“ok.  don’t let him inside.  if you talk to him talk to him on the porch or, even better, the sidewalk.  i’ll be there as soon as i can.  ok?  taemin?”  he nods & hangs up, the phone silent at his thigh as his hands hang limply at his sides.  suddenly he’s angry, a dizzying twist of emotions that he didn’t expect.  then again, he didn’t expect jonghyun.  there were so many ways they could have met again & showing up at taemin’s door with no notice is not fair.

the door flies open & he storms out into the sunlight streaming down onto the small porch, crossing his arms & glaring down at his uninvited visitor.  jonghyun’s halfway down the walk but the sound of the door opening has him facing back towards the house.  his smile is bright but uncertain & he looks so vulnerable that taemin’s anger is cut in half.  when he moves towards where taemin towers over him on the stairs he steps back & pulls the door shut behind him, sighing as they now stand twelve feet apart & he’s now three heads higher than the first man he loved.

“hey taemin.”  the sound of his name in jonghyun’s soft voice is achingly familiar & a wave of nostalgia passes over before dissolving into nothing. 

“jonghyun.”  silence punctuated by the sound of life bursting around them pierces taemin’s ears & he wishes jonghyun would start talking since he’s the one who came.

“you look well.”  hollow pleasantries.  a waste of time & words.

“why are you here?”  jonghyun stuffs his hands in his pockets & glances around nervously before asking if they could go inside to talk.

“no.”  clearly not the response he expected as his eyebrows raise & his mouth forms a perfect ‘o’.  he nods & begins moving toward where taemin still stands on the porch.

“can we talk?”  a hand slips out of his pocket & waves at the bottom step.  taemin watches him for a moment before responding.  from his vantage point jonghyun looks small & fragile, familiar in a distant way.  most importantly he seems sober.  a quick nod & a tight “sure” & now they’re sitting a foot apart on warm concrete staring out at the street.  taemin can hear children playing down at one end & the faint sound of cars rushing by at the other.

jonghyun rubs the back of his neck with his hand & stares out at the lawn.  he’s building up his words & taemin lets him. 

“how’ve you been?”  more pleasantries, more waste. 

“why are you here?”

“i’m sober.”

“i see that.”

“no i’m...”  he reaches back into his pocket & pulls out a blue coin.  “i’m sober.  a year now.”  the time that had passed since taemin had last seen his face.  he looks at it now.  it’s not the same man he met but it’s mostly him.  nodding seems right & he takes the coin when jonghyun offers.  it’s warm from being against his thigh & the ridges of the words feel nice under his thumb.  he hands it back without comment.

“so yeah.”  the coin is held for a moment more before being tucked back into the darkness of jonghyun’s jeans.  “um.  making amends is one of the major steps which is why i’m here.  we’re not supposed to try if it might hurt the other person which is why i didn’t call.”  taemin scoffs.

“you thought showing up unannounced would be better?”

“no i...i was leaving a message for gwiboon.”  he pulls out a piece of folded paper from his other pocket & smiles sheepishly.  taemin frowns in understanding.

“you didn’t even know i lived here.”

“no.  i didn’t know where you were.  i thought gwiboon might & i knew that she would at least tell you that i’d stopped by.”

“well now you’ve found me.” 

“yeah.”  a sigh slips through taemin’s lips. 

“i forgive you.”

“you shouldn’t.”  it’s harsh & abrupt & taemin glances over to see jonghyun swallow & purse his lips, fighting back tears.  “there’s no way i can ever make up for what i did, taemin.  what i did to you.  half of it is just a blur & the rest...”  his voice trails off & he bends his head, his fingers linking at the base of his skull.  taemin watches passively before turning back to the sidewalk.  a little boy from three houses down passes by on a scooter.  “it was me.  it was all me.  you didn’t deserve any of it.  none of it.”  tears are flowing freely now & taemin listens to the man beside him cry.  he’ll accept his apology but he won’t qualify his actions; jonghyun’s not going to be rewarded for being decent. 

“i know.  i forgive you.”

“why?”  hiccups wrack jonghyun’s chest & the last of taemin’s anger is breathed out in a little chuckle.

“because i want to.  because i can.  because i have.”

“you should hate me.”

“that’s my choice.  besides, i never hated you.  not even then.  i loved you then.  i love you now.  you were the first person who told me they loved me & meant it, you were the first person who made me feel loved.  you gave me a home, you gave me hope, you were there for me.  you were the first person i trusted.”  jonghyun makes a choking sound & tears flow down his cheeks, glistening in the sunshine.

“i am so sorry, taemin.  i am so sorry.”

“i know.”  the impulse to rub jonghyun’s back is stifled by the pressing desire to bring the conversation to an end & the thought that if he did jonghyun might begin crying in his lap.  “cross me off your list.” 

the sun bathes them in light as jonghyun’s tears slowly fade.  he’s nearly calm again, sniffling & wiping his face with the collar of his shirt when minho’s truck pulls up.  taemin leans forward in surprise when jinki alone steps out & begins walking their way.  his eyes narrow in suspicion as jinki’s face widens into a smile that is far, far too bright.

“you must be jonghyun,” he says, his tone all wrong.  he sounds delighted, enthused to be meeting the man with red eyes & tear-stained cheeks sitting next to his boyfriend’s boyfriend on the bottom step of his girlfriend’s house.  he’s smiling as though he were greeting a long lost relative rather than a shady piece of his friend’s complicated past.  he reaches out his hand & jonghyun glances at taemin before nodding & offering his up.  “jinki.  gwiboon’s boyfriend.  i’ve heard a lot about you.”

“oh.  i’ve heard about you too.”

“visiting?”  jonghyun’s hand is still trapped in his & there’s a spark of panic in his eyes.

“yes.  no.  i was just dropping off a message for gwiboon.”

“you drove all the way over here to drop off a letter?  you do realize the federal government has a whole system to make such a delivery far more convenient for the average citizen?  not to mention all the technological advances in electronic communications.”  he’s still smiling.  taemin shifts in his seat.

“jinki...” 

“well while you’re in town i recommend you stop in at kim’s cafe,” jinki cuts in, “they have the most amazing dumplings you will ever eat.  just delicious.”  he’s nodding & jonghyun nods along, his hand still stuck in jinki’s grasp.

“thanks.  i’ll try to stop in on my way out of town.”

“good!  you won’t be disappointed.  not like if you ever stop at gwiboon’s house again without calling first.”  the smile is gone & the tone of his voice is almost as cold as the look he fixes on jonghyun.  he glances over at taemin & asks “are you all right?”  stunned, taemin quickly nods.  jinki nods back & turns his attentions again to jonghyun.  “you are very, very lucky she wasn’t here.  be careful where you go when you head back home.  city’s a pretty dangerous place & you wouldn’t want to end up in the wrong end of town.”  jonghyun nods, swallowing, his eyes never leaving jinki’s.  suddenly the smile is back & jinki’s patting jonghyun on the shoulder with his spare hand.

“cool.  take care man.”  the hold he has on the jonghyun’s hand releases & he pats taemin on the shoulder as he steps between them & enters the house, the screen door slamming closed & the inner door noticeably left open.  white marks impressed in jonghyun’s hand slowly fade to red & the breaths they’d both been holding are exhaled in unison.  jonghyun’s rubbing his palm with his thumb while taemin watches.

“you should probably leave before gwiboon comes home.  she knows you’re here.”  jonghyun nods & stands, pulls the piece of paper out of his pocket & hands it to taemin.

“is he good to her?”

“do you think she’d stay if he wasn’t?”  the flinch on jonghyun’s face is followed by a resigned nod & he gives a little smile as he moves down the walkway.

“jonghyun!”  he turns back, his eyes guarded as taemin stands up, fists shoved into pockets. “i meant it.  all of it.  i’ll always love you, ok?  i never hated you.”  jonghyun’s eyebrows furrow & there’s a glint of hope in his eyes that taemin shakes his head at.  “we can’t be friends, though.  not now.”  there’s a resignation to jonghyun’s nod as his shoulders droop but the smile on his face is real & so is taemin’s as he waves good-bye.

~

jinki’s sitting at the table with a bottle & he doesn’t look up until taemin sits down across from him.

“you good?”

“yeah.  he came by to apologize.”

“good.”

“to gwiboon.”  an eyebrow rises & it’s then that taemin notices the bottle isn’t open.

“not to you?”

“he didn’t know i was here.”

“hm.”  there’s a sliver of doubt in jinki’s eye but he doesn’t press.  the only follow-up is a third repetition of the question as to whether taemin is all right.

“yeah.  i really am.”

gwiboon begins to tear up the note before taemin stops her & it’s only jinki’s warm hand at her back that calms her down.  lips purse & a single tear hits her cheek as she reads before the paper is balled up & thrown into the bin.  jinki pats taemin on the shoulder as he follows gwiboon down the hall & he shuts the door behind them.

taemin stands next to the bar & stares at the metal tube that holds the words jonghyun traveled a hundred miles to deliver.  they’re not meant for him though: jonghyun’s words for taemin were spoken to his face & heard with his own ears.  shoes slip easily on his feet & the door clicks behind him as he shoves his hands into his pockets, takes a breath, & leaves.

~

 gwiboon’s sitting on the front porch smoking when he comes around the corner five hours later & he’s too relieved to see her out of the house to be disappointed.  she starts to stand & he hears his name come from her lips & then she’s gasping in his ear.  her cigarette drops to the concrete & he feels her shuffle quickly to stomp it out, her arms wrapping tightly around him.  her voice whispers in his ear, little consolations that mean nothing & everything & he’s just so grateful that she’s not mad.

~

“you should stop smoking.”

“so should you.”

“i know.”  the heat of the day is getting to him & he takes another sip of his iced lemonade before putting the coaster back over the glass & cursing the creation of insects.

“they figured out what’s wrong.”

“yeah?”

“it’s a really easy fix.”

“that’s good.”

“i talked to jinki.”  taemin nods.  she takes a drag & stumps out the cigarette that’s been only half-smoked.  the rush of cool air when they step inside has him audibly relaxing, his shoulders stiffening when he remembers his drink & heads back out into the heat again.  smoke still flits from the ashtray & a little smile makes its way to his lips.  funny how a roll of tobacco & nicotine could hold so much hope.

~

taemin watches gwiboon watch jinki talk about the rollercoasters as he rubs her legs & then turns back to minho & smiles as his boyfriend drives them home.

~

minho grunts as taemin jumps onto his back & clutches at his boyfriend’s shirt, nearly strangling him with the stretchy cotton.  his eyes are squeezed tight & his ankles crossed at minho’s waist as he mutters “holyfuckholyfuckholyfuckholyfuckholyfuck”.  a chuckle & a kiss to taemin’s arm & minho’s walking them to the bedroom & dropping taemin on the bed.

“where is it?”

“windowsill.”  taemin’s eyes are still squeezed shut as minho’s footsteps fade away & he waits for minho’s return & the confirmation that the miscreant that’s invaded their home has died an ignoble death. 

~

they laugh into their new year’s kiss, both of them having frozen their fingers with glasses of champagne & each doing their best to press those same fingers against the other’s waist.  minho succeeds first though taemin is quick to follow & their competition earns them a stiff “get away from the table!” from gwiboon who sits in jinki’s lap.  his fingers rub at her hip & hold her at the small of her back & her own rest on his shoulder & stroke at his cheek.  the ten-week trial of switching housemates has worked out well for everyone involved & the only work-around necessary was finding time for jinki & minho to be alone.  taemin has learned a lot about pregnancy during those nights & can now spell “cervical insufficiency”. 

gwiboon decided to wait until her need for nicotine was under control to try again & to see how living with jinki would affect their relationship.  the ashtrays have disappeared & a dozen pen caps have been chewed to shreds.  the future goal outweighs her momentary need & even this stretching of her nerves hasn’t had her kick jinki out.  taemin watches them together & believes.

his lips press against gwiboon’s cheek while minho & jinki share their first kiss of the new year behind them.  a new year means a new chance to fuck things up or make them right & tonight they’re starting it out together.  with any luck they’ll end it together as well.   

”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
